In Defense of Character Training

While our kids are not grown and the jury is still out on them, so to speak, I have a few thoughts I'd like to share on character training and why I'm all for it.  As believers of course we want to "train up our child in the way he should go so that when he's old he will not depart from it", but the question is what does that mean.  I think we would all agree it includes teaching them God's Word at every opportunity.  Memorizing Bible verses together, explaining the Scriptures to our children, and giving them the gospel, are all obviously important.  But what about character training?  Can you teach character?  Isn't that something that is better caught than taught we reasoned?  And our biggest fear was that we'd raise little pharisees who conform outwardly, but have hardened hearts.

We've decided in favor of character training for three reasons.  I'll share them and then the method we've chosen to employ and why.

1.  Our goal is not to train our children to behave, though I certainly wouldn't complain if that were a byproduct.  We teach character because we want to hold up God's righteous standard to our children at every possible turn. 

2.  The only honest reaction to God's righteous standard is the recognition of sin.  I know our culture thinks it's important to give our children self-esteem.  Our children already have self-esteem, we want them to see their sin (and ours, too).  No self-recognition of sin = no need for a Saviour.

3.  We want to emphasize God's grace, His mercy, His forgiveness, and His empowerment of believers to obey Him via the Holy Spirit.  I think I always come away more beat up from our character studies than my kids do.  It's the perfect opportunity to confess my failures to my children and to God and to pray that the Lord will change us all for our good and His glory.

My husband decided the way we should teach character traits is by linking each one back to one or more of the 10 commandments.  For one thing it's practical because our children already know the 10 commandments, whereas they're less familiar with the entirety of the law.  For another, the 10 commandments are a summary of God's law and the two commandments a summary of the ten.

This way whatever else we use (examples from nature, role playing, etc.) we always come back to God's law.   For instance, if we're studying loyalty, we talk about how loyalty is required to keep the 1st commandment (Worship God only) and the seventh (Do not commit adultery).  Some character traits such as obedience or responsibility may be more general and without them none of God's laws can be kept.  Even in those cases, we try to get as specific as possible.  For example, responsibility, doing what is expected of us, is necessary if we are to love our neighbor as ourselves (summary of the second table of the law).   The kids amaze me with how good they are at finding connections between character qualities and the 10 commandments.  It's our desire that by doing character training in this way, we will have humble children who have a realistic knowledge of God's perfect standard and some insight into the depths of their own sin.   It's our prayer that each of our children will gratefully accept God's grace in salvation and place their faith and trust in Christ.

 

Disclaimer:  On any given day one or more of our children exhibit gross breaches in character.  So do their parents.  If we were doing this to make our children into paragons of virtue, we'd be miserable failures.  Our confidence rests in God alone and His powerful Word that never returns void.

And yes, she did hit me with that snowball.

Preparing the soil of our children's hearts to recieve God's Word part 2- Watering the seeds

I've been studying the parable of the soils and how it relates to parenting our children in such a way as to prepare their hearts to hear the Word of God.  Part 1 examined tilling the soil, but it's not enough to just soften their hearts. 

"Some fell on rock; and as soon as it sprang up, it withered away because it lacked moisture."  Luke 8:6

My husband bought a fancy tiller last year.  He's so proud of that machine and has tilled the heck out of our soil, but it doesn't matter how well-prepared the soil is to receive his vegetable seeds.  If my husband doesn't diligently water his garden, it will all dry up.  (Especially here in West Texas where rain is scarce.)

The same goes with our children.  We can strive to keep their hearts soft and tender to receive God's Word, but then fail to nurture the Word implanted.  We must "water" the seeds of their faith so that their faith will grow into a healthy plant.

The other way I water my children : ).

What is the water and where does it come from?

"Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night.  He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bring forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not whither; and whatever he does shall prosper.  The ungodly are not so, but are like chaff which the wind drives away.  Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgement, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.  For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish."  Psalm 1

According to Psalm 1 in order to be firmly planted by the water, we must delight in the law of the Lord and meditate on God's law day and night.  The key is delighting in God's Word.  The delight leads to the meditation and the meditation leads to being firmly planted.  The water is the Word.  And as we're watered by God's Word we become fruitful plants.

So the second principle is like the first, we must keep our children saturated in the Word of God so that they can become firmly planted and therefore bear spiritual fruit.



Sometimes our children enjoy being watered.

 

And sometimes they don't!



And sometimes they'd just as soon not get wet : ).


At this point, let me say something that might seem technical or a matter of semantics.  One way of thinking of salvation is in terms of it occurring in stages- past, present, and future.  The terms for these three stages or tenses of salvation are justification, sanctification, and glorification.  The thing is, they all depend upon our immersion in God's Word. 

"So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God."  Romans 10:17

This seems obvious, but the reason I want to separate out these tenses of salvation is because of the erroneous belief prevalent in many churches today that we can sort of set aside the Scriptures after we're justified and rely upon personal experience or extra-biblical communication from God for sanctification.  As if God uses one medium to impart faith and another to impart progressive holiness.  I'm afraid many parents have rejoiced prematurely over their children's faith only to be shocked later when their grown children walk away from church or even the faith completely.  The Bible is clear that all of our salvation, past, present, and future is conveyed to us through God's Word.

"For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.  Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord."  Ephesians 5:8-10

How do we find out what is acceptable to the Lord?  He tells us in His Word, of course.

"His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust."  2 Peter 1:3-4

Where do we find this knowledge of God and these great and precious promises?  In God's Word, of course.

"Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overlow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted Word, which is able to save your souls.  But be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves."  James 1:21-22

Sanctification is nothing more than becoming doers of the Word.  And how do we do that?

"Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure."  Philippians 2:12-13

God supernaturally works in His children to enable them to obey His Word.

And why is obedience important again, seeing as how I'm saved by faith not works (Eph 2:8-9)?

"I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.  Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.  You are already clean because of the Word which I have spoken to you.  Abide in Me, and I in you.  As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me."  John 15:1-4

This passage brings us full circle back to the importance of watering and roots.  We cannot be obedient to God without abiding in Christ and we find Christ in His Word.  Can I even know Christ apart from God's Word? Is there any experience that can match or supercede the experience of Him in His Word?  For Christ is the Word! (John 1:1-14)

If we want our children to grow up into men and women of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we must give them a steady diet of the Word of God.  I'm not talking the average 6 minutes per week common amongst professing evangelicals.  We have to do better than that.  Our faith is nurtured by the Word.  1 Pet 2:2 says we should crave the Word of God like newborns crave milk.  My 5 month old would not be satisfied with 6 minutes per week of nursing and neither should we be satisfied with 6 minutes per week in God's Word.  John Piper has a saying when someone tells him they're just too busy to have a daily time in the Word.  Piper asks them, "Did you eat breakfast today?  Then you're not too busy."

Again, we cannot make our children trust Christ, only God can do that.  We cannot make them bear fruit, only God can do that.  But we can plant the seeds, and we can water them!

"Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one?  I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase."  1 Corin 3:5-6

We are those ministers to our children.  I have to constantly remind myself that the time my husband and I spend with our kids each day in the Bible is more important than their math lessons, more important than language arts, more important than their reading, and even more important than their chores.  As Christian parents, it could easily be argued that our main purpose in parenting our children is to pass on our faith to them (for what does it profit a man if he gain the whole world, but forfeit his soul? Mark 8:36).  The primary means we have of doing this is by reading, talking about, and living out the Word in our families each day (Deut 6:6).  We have to stop skimping on the main course!  If anything needs to be cut from our daily menu, it should be one of the sides, but not the main course!

The same Scriptures able to save our souls are able to mature us. 

"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work."  2 Timothy 3:16

 God could have chosen any means to work in us, but He has chosen His Word.  His Spirit works in conjunction with, not apart from, His Word.  We cannot neglect to water the immature faith of our children with the Word of God.  There is no other way for their faith to grow!

Next time I'll talk about those pesky birds that try to devour the seeds we so painstakingly plant.    

Consecrating our homes

What does it meant to consecrate something?  The definition I've always been taught is that it has to do with setting something apart for God.  In A Church in the House by Mathew Henry (1704) he encourages believers to "proceed in the right method; first set up Christ upon the throne in your hearts, and then set up a church for Christ in your house.  Let Christ dwell in your hearts by faith, and then let Him dwell in your houses.  Let there be churches in all your houses.  Let those that have the statliest, richest, and best furnished houses, reckon a church in them to be their best ornament."  (p.74)

Now I know that consecrating our houses mainly has to do with how we use them- what we do in them- how we behave in them.  Is Christ honored in our homes by our words and deeds?  Is God's Word read?  Are the the Lord's praises extolled?  In short, is He worshiped in our homes?  Do we open our homes and hearts to one another in order to share Christ?

But having said that, we all do well to have visible reminders of the purpose of our homes.  I love having Scriptures about such as the famous declaration of Joshua,  "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."  I'm reminded of the importance of the shema to the Jews and how they had it written on their doorposts.  "The Lord our God, the Lord is One.  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind."  Deut 6:4-5  Really, the next part of the shema has been taken up by homeschoolers, myself included, as a sort of battlecry:  "And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart.  You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.  You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.  YOu shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on  your gates."  Deut 6:6-9

Of course, it doesn't do any good to have God's Word on our doorposts if He isn't in our hearts, but what a great daily reminder to make loving God with all of our being and treasuring and teaching His Word our top priorities.

Li Quan and his wife in Safely Home by Randy Alcorn, use an empty chair as a visible reminder that Christ is always right there with them in their home.  If we are in Christ and He is in us, then He really is present with us in our homes!  It's one thing to believe it in some abstract, theoretical sense, but quite another to be reminded of it in a physical way by a tangible object.  In the book, their guest keeps wondering what in the world that empty chair is all about.  At one point, Li Quan pulls the chair up to the piano as he plays worship songs.  Finally, Li Quan explains the chair that his grandfather had made:  "... it became for him the chair of Yesu.  When others claimed to rule the world, it reminded him who was the true King.  But most important, this chair is a remembrance of Yesu's promise to always be with His children.  At every meal we have, we remember He is with us.  When we sit in the evening, when we go to sleep at night, we remember He is there, watching over us.  No matter what.  My father said his father, Li Wen, taught that Jesu was truly in the chair, that though He was everywhere and the chair was but a symbol, it was a very important symbol."  (pp. 278-279)

So about a year ago I asked a good friend of ours at church to do a painting of Christ's throne that we would hang above our fireplace in our living room.  This is the room of our house where we most often gather- for devotions and worship, for Bible study, hospitality, family fun, even homeschool.  Our friend completely surprised us a couple of weeks ago with the finished and framed painting and wouldn't take any money for it!  I love it so much, but even more I love what it represents.  He really is among us.  As believers, our home really is consecrated to Him.  My prayer is that this visible reminder will help us consecrate our words, actions, and very lives to Him, as well.

What do you think?  Cool or weird?  My husband stood back, looked at me and said, "I think you've got some Anglican in you.  They're into all that symbolism."  I love it and am so glad to have our family portrait replaced by the throne of Christ.  I want us to be God-centered in our home, not us-centered.  We need every bit of help and every reminder possible to live each day in light of the reality of the presence of Christ in our lives.  He didn't just die on the cross for our sins, He's alive and reigning physically on His throne in heaven right now just as He's reigning spiritually in and through God's chosen people, His church. Now that's what I call good news!

Divided

Last year I wrote a series on my blog about the family-integrated church.  A couple of nights ago my husband and I watched the documentary Divided that addresses the issue of whether teens are better off (spiritually speaking) of attending youth group or worshiping with their families.  Big D and I both agreed the movie is well-made and thought-provoking.  It's available through Vision Forum.

The young man who made the movie did so in order to find answers to the question of why young adults are leaving the church in droves never to return.  He interviews Ken Ham, Scott Brown, Voddie Baucham, Doug Phillips, and others.  I already knew what all of them would say, since I've read their books.  More interesting to me were his interviews with former youth pastors who have come to the same conclusion through their experiences.  If you're interested in this issue, I highly recommend viewing this film. 

Bartholomew's Passage- an advent story

Last year we read Jotham's Journey during the month of December.  It was our first time to read an advent story and I think I got as much out of it as the kids did!  As Christians it's our goal to re-focus our children's attention on our reason to celebrate Christmas- away from the stuff, and the shopping, and the stuff, and the Christmas movies, and the stuff... to the incarnation of Christ, His great humiliation by which He came to redeem those His Father would give Him.

This year we're reading Bartholomew's Passage and absolutely loving it!  The kids beg me to read more each day. 

What are you doing in your families to help re-focus on the Savior this Christmas season?  I love getting new ideas.  In fact, I learned about these books from several of you last year.  Thank you! 

Our devotional shelf and a giveaway

Since we have family worship in our living room, we've naturally begun collecting a few devotionals there to guide us.  I love this little shelf that sits between BigD's chair and mine.  It's just perfect for housing our Bible, hymn book, Bible storybook and devotionals.  Now they're right at our fingertips when we need them!

(No, she's not supposed to be drinking that in the living room.)

Speaking of devotionals, I've got a wonderful book on the attributes of God that's written in both English and Spanish.  Our friend illustrated the book in the Spanish style with bright colors.  This is a great little devotional on the attributes of God, but it would be especially helpful for kids who are studying Spanish. 

As you can see, the English is on one side with Spanish on the opposite page.  The attribute is briefly defined at the top of the page in italics, followed by an easy to understand description given in several paragraphs, and one or two verses at the bottom for memory or study.

Here's how you can win this devotional book:

Hop on over to my blogfrog community and join in the discussion on family worship.  Each comment gets one entry.  It's that simple.  I'll pick a winner after we've had a good discussion.

Thanks for joining in the conversation!  I know you won't leave me talking to myself- those conversations are always so one-sided!

The role of youth groups in the seeker-sensitive and emerging church movement

Don't you just love getting books in the mail?  Today my new 3rd edition copy of John MacArthur's Ashamed of the Gospel arrived and I immediately sat down and read the preface to this new edition.  I just love John MacArthur and he has helped me once again to see a connection I've somehow missed before.  My husband is a pastor and he and I spend a lot of time wondering how the evangelical church today came to be in the mess it's in.  MacArthur blames much of it on the influence of postmodernism.  But he also connected some dots for me about the role GenX youth groups have played.  I'm quoting below from pages 22 & 23 of the new 3rd edition of Ashamed of the Gospel:  when the church becomes like the world.

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Coming from the age group then known as Generation X, these postmodernized youth were mostly products of a ministry style that kept young people sequestered in youth ministry, away from adults.  They and their peers had learned to "do church" in settings where the focus was mostly on games and activities.  Their music was a whole generation newer than the supposedly contemporary stylings their parents favored.  They sported fashions that were even more cutting edge than the slickest seeker-sensitive church would ever think to feature.  And the attitudes of youth and youth leader alike were shaped to fit the postmodern style:  deeply cynical.

The main problem for those young people was that their parents' churches were indeed pathologically shallow and worldly.  The students had grown up being entertained far more than they were spiritually fed.  When they began to move out of the youth group into the adult world, they were turned off by churches that simply could not keep up with the changing styles.  In reality, even the trendiest seeker-sensitive churches were still wedded to the tastes and convictions of a modern, not a postmodern, generation. 

That is inevitably what happens when churches abandon biblical ministry in favor of worldly trends. 

The discovery of postmodernism by Gen-Xers in seeker-sensitive youth groups culminated in precisely the kind of disaster this book foretold (he means when originally published in 1993).  It was a recipe for the perfect apostasy:  thousands of young people had been indoctrinated with pragmatism as a way of life, raised with the idea that worship must be tailored to please "Unchurched Harry" in order to be relevant, and taught to regard truth as unattainable.  Now they were embracing all those errors at once and attempting to blend them all into A New Kind of Christianity.
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I've written previously about the sinking ship of youth ministry, so I won't repeat that here.  I will however add as a disclamimer that while in college I was a member of John MacArthur's church and attended the College and Career class there.  He's not saying all youth ministry is bad, he has a youth ministry in his own church.  Each week I was encouraged by two sermons, one from Dr. MacArthur during church and the other from Scott Ardavanis, an excellent expositor of the Word in his own right.  Certainly, we can fill a room with young adults and feed them the Word of God and call it youth ministry.  No one is arguing against that.  The problem is very few churches are doing that.  MacArthur goes on to explain that postmodernism combined with the age of the internet has left people with shorter attention spans who are more interested in sound bites than the truth.  "Our culture has simply lost patience with reasoned discourse and careful exposition." (MacArthur in Ashamed of the Gospel p. 20)  Furthermore, it has "lost the ability to distinguish between what's trivial and what's profound."  (p. 20)

What does all of this mean to me?  It helps my husband and I to understand why our church will probably always be small.  It also reaffirms to us the significance of homeschooling in an effort to combat the postmodern mentality in our children.  And finally, it encourages us to stay the course in our church and not go the way of the world even though we understand it will limit the size of our church.  Yes, I've been told the Wednesday night Scripture memory class that I teach is boring (not by a homeschooled child by the way).  We do play games occassionally, but mostly we just memorize the Bible.  It's because we understand that only the Word of God will nourish and mature our children into a godly generation that will hopefully bring about Reformation in the evangelical church.  Our cry is the same as that of the Reformers.  Ecclesia Reformata, Semper Reformanda.  The church reformed, and always to be reformed.  Because we are morally corrupt and live in a fallen world, we must constantly endeavor to keep our churches and doctrine in line with the perfect standard of God's Word.  In the words of MacArthur's title, we must do whatever it takes to NOT become Ashamed of the Gospel so that the church will NOT become like the world.

90 day Bible update and some thoughts on worship

Disclaimer: I have never read a book on worship, these are just my reflections from recent readings in the Chronicles, Nehemiah, Job, and Psalms. I am not attempting to solve any of the myriad debates going on in churches today about worship.

The reason I added the disclaimer above is because when I told Big D what I was writing about he suggested I read a few books from his weighed down shelf devoted to worship first. I asked him if I could just write a disclaimer instead. Warning: I am completely ignorant about the doctrine of worship. So there, you’ve been warned. Read on at your own risk.

The first time I stopped in my 90 day Bible challenge and went, “Huh?” over something related to worship was when God instructed the Israelites to build an altar of earth or “undressed” stones. I pondered why He would instruct the Israelites in this manner, and specifically forbid them from using tools on the stones. Similar instructions are repeated in Deut 27:4-6 and Joshua 8:31. I mused over what some of those reasons may have been in my second 90 day Bible update, but whatever His reasons, the point is that God feels strongly about how His people are to worship Him. The service of the Levites in the temple of the Lord was also very specific. “They were to serve before the Lord regularly in the proper number and in the way prescribed for them.” (1 Chronicles 23:31) It seems like everyone has an opinion on worship these days, doesn’t it? It appears that God has an opinion, as well. And shouldn’t His opinion be the one that counts? This made me want to be more careful as I continue to read through the Bible to note any instructions or Biblical examples of worship. Of course, there are too many to be thorough so I’ll just share some thoughts that stood out to me.

1. Worship is more than music.

The first thing that probably pops into most of our minds when we hear the word “worship” in connection to the church is music. There are many examples of the role music plays in worship, and I don’t mean to discount those references in any way. In fact, I was surprised by the degree of choreography that went into dedicating the newly re-built wall around Jerusalem in Nehemiah 12. There were two choirs marching around the wall in opposite directions so that “the sound of rejoicing in Jerusalem could be heard far away.” And 2 Chronicles 5:12 describes the priests who were musicians playing cymbals, harps, lyres, and accompanied by 120 priests sounding trumpets and singers praising God and giving thanks to Him in unison. Wow! But, back to my point, worship is so much more than music.

It can take the form of declaration of who God is through praising His attributes (“I know that You can do all things; no plan of Yours can be thwarted.” Job 42:2 and from Nehemiah 9:5-6 “Blessed be Your glorious Name, and may it be exalted above all blessing and praise. You alone are the Lord.”); remembrance and celebration of what God has done for His people (“You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything.” Nehemiah 9:6 and from Joshua, “He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.” Joshua 4:24 in reference to the 12 memorial stones taken out of the Jordan.); giving (“Everything comes from You, and we have given You only what comes from Your hand.” 1 Chronicles 29:14); corporate reading of God’s Word (“They stood where they were and read from the Book of the Law of the Lord their God for a quarter of the day.” Nehemiah 9:3); confession (“And spent another quarter of the day in confession” Nehemiah 9:3; and obedience (Again in Nehemiah, “The rest of the people…bind themselves with a curse and an oath to follow the Law of God given through Moses the servant of God and to obey carefully all the commands, regulations and decrees of the Lord our Lord.” vv 28-29), to name a few.

“Sing to the Lord, praise His name; proclaim His salvation day after day. Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous deeds among all peoples.” Psalm 96:3

2. Worship requires a proper knowledge of who God is and who I am.

Unless I understand what God has done for me, I cannot ascribe the worth to Him that He is due. The first time this is evident in the Bible is with the offerings of Cain and Abel. I’ve written at length about this in a post on the proto-evangelium, but for now suffice it to say that Abel got it and Cain didn’t. Abel understood that he was a sinner and that his sin demanded death. Abel understood that there is no remission of sins without the shedding of blood. Abel understood that his firstfruits belonged to the Lord. The next time I noticed how serious this is to God is when He consumed Nadab and Abihu after they offered strange or unauthorized fire. My first thought was, “What did they do wrong? They were just trying to worship God, weren’t they?” Evidently not, for in Leviticus 10:3 Moses reiterates to Aaron that this is what God was talking about when He said, “Among those who approach Me, I will show Myself holy; in the sight of all the people I will be honored.” This tells us that they were not honoring God.

My husband and I have been very convicted about this over the last few years. Our kids can be very silly and my husband likes to play along with them in song. He plays the guitar and makes up silly songs. It’s a lot of fun. But, we make it very clear to our kids that when it comes to singing to the Lord, that’s no joking matter. We do not get silly when we’re singing to God. We do not allow them to sit on their heads, or sing vibrato, or insert different words, or any of the other things that they’re aloud to do during playtime. This might appear harsh to some people, but we are desperately trying to teach our children to honor God as holy. Something Nadab and Abihu failed to do and payed for it with their lives.

3. Worship is more of a heart attitude than an outward performance.

Psalm 40:6 “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but my ears you have pierced; burnt offerings and sin offerings You did not require.” The application I get from this is that listening attentively to and heeding God’s Word are more important to the Lord than any outward form of worship. We can sing beautifully and take communion, but it doesn’t mean anything if we are not pierced by His Word.

Psalm 51:16 “You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; You do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” Again, it’s our heart attitude that God looks at. If we allow ourselves to be “pierced by God’s Word” then the result of that will be a contrite spirit that cries out to the Lord for His mercy.

1 Chronicles 22:19 “Now devote your heart and soul to seeking the Lord your God.”

Michal despised David in her heart when she saw him leaping and dancing before the Lord. (2 Samuel 6:16) David didn’t seem to be overly clothed. “Wearing a linen ephod, he danced before the Lord with all his might.” (2 Samuel 6:15) Michal says it is his “disrobing” of himself that she disapproved of. I can’t say I blame her for this. We put a lot of stock in our modesty, don’t we? But, evidently this was either a smokescreen and she had other reasons to be unhappy about David worshiping the Lord, or her complaint is evidence that she missed the point of his worship. Best case scenario, Michal was focused on David’s image as King. She was the daughter of a King and remember that Saul had been “an impressive young man without equal among the Israelites- a head taller than any of the others.” (1 Samuel 9:2) Saul’s father, Michal’s grandfather, was a man of standing. I don’t know if this means respect or money or both, but it seems like impressions were important to this family. A wife is supposed to contribute to her husband’s good reputation (Proverbs 31), but the kind of reputation God is concerned about is having a heart for Him. God is not as concerned about what we wear or how we appear to others, but whether we are seeking Him with our whole heart (1 Peter 3:1-6, Psalm 119:2 and 10). “The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7) All that by way of saying, it appears as if Michal was focused on the wrong thing. She was looking at the outer man and God was looking at David’s heart.


4. Worship assumes a variety of postures.

"So they all praised the Lord, the God of their fathers; they bowed low and fell prostrate before the Lord." 1 Chronicles 29:20 "They were also to stand every morning to thank and praise the Lord." 1 Chronicles 23:30 "As he opened it (the Book of the Law), the people all stood up." Nehemiah 8:5 "Ezra praised the Lord, the great God; and all the people lifted their hands and responded 'Amen! Amen!' Then they bowed down and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground." Nehemiah 8: 6 I especially love the progression there. Its seems they acknowledge who God is by standing and raising their hands and then acknowledge who they are by falling to the ground prostrate.

5. Worship is not always politically correct.

It seems to me that there is a whole side of worship demonstrated in the Psalms that is left out of our churches today, and perhaps even left out of our private prayer lives, as well. I’ve been underlining all the verses in the Psalms that plead with God to avenge His Name and His people. This is pretty radical stuff. I’ll just give you a sampling.

“Repay them for their deeds and for their evil work; repay them for what their hands have done and bring back upon them what they deserve. Since they show no regard for the works of the Lord and what His hands have done, He will tear them down and never build them up again.” Psalm 28:4-5

“Let their lying lips be silenced, for with pride and contempt they speak arrogantly against the righteous.” Psalm 31:18

“O Lord, You have seen this; be not silent. Do not be far from me, O Lord. Awake, and rise to my defense! Contend for me, my God and Lord. Vindicate me in Your righteousness, O Lord my God; do not let them gloat over me. Do not let them think, ‘Aha, just what we wanted!’ or say, ‘We have swallowed him up.’ May all who gloat over my distress be put to shame and confusion; may all who exalt themselves over me be clothed with shame and disgrace.” Psalm 35:22-26

“In Your might make them wander about, and bring them down. For the sins of their mouths, for the words of their lips, let them be caught in their pride. For the curses and lies they utter, consume them in wrath, consume them till they are no more. Then it will be known to the ends of the earth that God rules over Jacob.” Psalm 59:11-13

“But God will shoot them with arrows; suddenly they will be struck down. He will turn their own tongues against them and bring them to ruin; all who see them will shake their heads in scorn. All mankind will fear; they will proclaim the works of God and ponder what He has done.” Psalm 64:7-8

“As smoke is blown away by the wind, may you blow them away; as wax melts before the fire, may the wicked perish before God.” Psalm 68:2

“Rise up, O God, and defend Your cause; remember how fools mock You all day long.” Psalm 74:22

“Pay back into the laps of our neighbors seven times the reproach they have hurled at You, O Lord.” Psalm 79:12

“May they ever be ashamed and dismayed; may they perish in disgrace. Let them know that You, whose name is the Lord- that You alone are the Most High over all the earth.” Psalm 83:17-18

“O Lord, the God who avenges, O God who avenges, shine forth. Rise up, O Judge of the earth; pay back to the proud what they deserve.” Psalm 94: 1-2

When’s the last time your church prayed like this? We’re living in the midst of a wicked generation in a culture that is increasingly anti-God. Does it bother us? Enough to cry out to the Lord to avenge Himself and bring glory to His Name? Why don’t we do this in church? Can anyone tell me? This is just so politically incorrect, is it not? I think it’s important to remember that our goal is God’s glory, not our own retribution. This type of prayer seems to be a major theme in the Psalms and I think recovering this desire for Divine retribution will help us to worship God more completely. But that's just my opinion. What do you think?

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Family Worship is not just for those within Family-Integrated Churches

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In the previous two posts in my series on the family-integrated church I addressed how those of us not in a FIC can make our Sunday school programs more Biblical, and how we can strive for the inter-generational relationships that are so much a part of the discipleship and ministry pattern we see in the Bible. Now, for my final post in this series, I want to consider how we can encourage and equip parents to have a church in the home where they instruct, catechize, and worship with their children. It has been my theory all along that it is not the one hour each Sunday morning that will determine whether a child grows into a “spiritual champion” (to borrow the term employed by George Barna in his book Revolutionary Parenting), but that it’s the daily spiritual heart beat of the home. Ken Ham tells us in Already Gone that young people who have been brought up in the church and going to Sunday school are leaving the church after graduating and not coming back (at least not as of their mid-20s). It’s estimated that a staggering 80% of the kids in our churches will leave and never look back. Shocking, isn’t it? But, what about the other 20%? That’s what the book Revolutionary Parenting is about. George Barna sought out these kids who were brought up along-side these other kids in the church, but didn’t leave. What was the difference with these “spiritual champions”? According to the adult children of revolutionary parents that made a spiritual difference in their kids’ lives, there was a “consistent effort and emphasis placed on spiritual growth” in the home that made an impression on their young minds. “Those adult children also noted that the example set by their parents continues to have an effect on how these young adults live today.” (p. 34) In other words, the parents of spiritual champions were concerned about spiritual matters at home, both for themselves and their children. These types of parents pray and read the Bible on a daily basis and discuss faith matters with their children. Christianity is not a once a week activity.

These parents may be considered revolutionary by some, but the findings in Barna’s book are not. This is nothing new folks. Mathew Henry was preaching and writing about this over 300 years ago! Henry argued from the pulpit and then in his book entitled A Church in the House that all Christian families should establish a church in the house. “Churches are sacred societies, incorporated for the honor and service of God in Christ in two ways. First, they are devoted to God, and second, they are employed for Him. So should our families be.” (p.29) According to Henry, three things are necessary for maintaining a church at home.

1. Doctrine- Reading the Bible daily will be the primary means of establishing a right doctrine in the home. Other tools such as a catechism and even other books may assist you in this endeavor. For instance, we’re reading the book Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends right now as part of our church in the home. It is a precious book full of illustrations and encouragement from the Bible.

Here’s what Henry says about the serious nature of this daily time in the Bible. “You must read the Scriptures to your families, in a solemn manner, requiring their attendance on your reading, and their attention to it; and inquiring sometimes whether they understand what you read.” (p. 35) Henry further argues about the importance of a daily commitment to reading the Scriptures. “Let me therefore with all earnestness press it upon you to make a solemn reading of the Scripture a part of your daily worship in your families. When you speak to God by prayer, be willing to hear Him speak to you in His Word, that there may be a complete communion between you and God.” (p. 37) This is so important it bears repeating. We cannot cry “Lord, help me, help me, help me.” Then lament that He doesn’t hear us, when we’re not reading His Word. That would be rather one-sided of us, wouldn’t it? We would be having a conversation with ourselves. I wonder how many Christians see it that way today.

2. Worship- Families need to pray together and according to Henry they should pray specifically five things: acknowledge your family’s dependence on God and His providence, confess the sins of your family, offer up thanksgiving for family blessings, present petitions for the mercy and grace your family needs, and make intercessions for others as a family. Henry also recommends the singing of Psalms as a part of daily and especially Sabbath worship. We also teach our kids old hymns and even some praise songs while Big D accompanies on the guitar. This is by far our kids' favorite part of our church in the house. They love to pray and sing.

3. Discipline- I know this has become a dirty word in families today. Maybe an unspoken word and concept would be more like it. My kids and I watched Super Nanny on tv last night and it was quite eye-opening. My kids couldn’t over it and asked me repeatedly why the kids acted the way they did and why the parents acted the way they did. It’s so sad to see the devastating results of failing to discipline our children. However, Henry makes an especially convicting point about the goal of discipline. “The authority God has given you over your children and servants is principally designed for this end, that you may engage them for God and godliness. If you use it only to oblige them to do your will, and so to serve your pride, and to do your business, and so to serve your worldliness, you do not answer the great end of your being invested with it. You must use it to God’s honor, and use your authority to engage them as far as you can to do the will of God, and mind the business of Christ.” (p. 54) Ouch! How much of my kids being well-behaved is because my husband and I desire them to be used by God, and how much is because my husband and I prefer a peaceful and quiet home? I have to constantly remind myself that we are trying to pierce their hearts with God’s Word, not just trying to make our lives more manageable.

Family worship is not just for those within the family-integrated church movement. All Christian families should have a church in the house. The restoration of family worship to the home can revolutionize our churches. It’s time for a revival. It’s time our churches start looking like churches, and not like the rest of the world. It’s time we parents get serious about passing on our faith to our kids. It will not happen if we leave it up to others. It will not happen if ours is not a genuine faith that inspires and motivates us throughout the week. It will not happen if we continue to neglect the church in the home.

Striving for multi-generational interactions in a non-family integrated church

If you’ve been following my series on the family-integrated church, you know that I love so many aspects of it and would love for ours to be a purely family-integrated church. However, many of us may find ourselves in a church we love that is not family-integrated, so to conclude this series I’m attempting to find ways that we can borrow from the FIC model and become more Biblical in the process.

One of the things I love most about the FIC is the fellowship of believers. Rather than segregating members into classes with cookie cutters of themselves- married with young children, singles, seniors, married with grown children, college and career, etc.- the FIC encourages members of all walks of life to fellowship together as a family. I love this and find it to be more Biblical and more real-life than the contemporary model of segregation. Think about it. We all have a family and the bulk of our life is lived within that larger family life. Imagine if my husband and I decided not to allow our kids to spend time with our parents. Unthinkable, right? We’re so blessed to live in the same neighborhood as my parents, my husband’s parents, and my grandmother. We love that our kids can take the dog for a walk and stop by to visit grandparents. Most of us believe that our parents and grandparents have something wonderful to offer our children. They are wise and experienced, and they love them expecting nothing in return. They are more mature in the faith and age has given them a more clear sense of priorities. My parents have passed on to my children a love for the land and the great outdoors, as well as their love for the Lord and uncompromising dedication to the Word of God. This inter-generational fellowship gives our children a sense of the world beyond themselves, that they play a small part in time and that they will carry the torch their grandparents pass to them. You’re probably thinking, so what’s your point? My point is why don’t we reflect this in the way we do church? Why don’t we value those more seasoned in life and what they have to offer the church? Why don’t we encourage our children to learn from our church family just like we encourage them to learn from our immediate family?

The Bible is full of passages that show us how important other believers are to our own spiritual lives. We are supposed to encourage one another, warn one another, teach one another, pray for one another, and bear one another’s burdens. Specifically, older women are to teach younger women and older men are to disciple younger men. How can we accomplish this in a non-FIC? I think the answer is that most churches are not accomplishing this. In all honesty, I’ve only recently become aware of the importance of these relationships. I’m blessed to have a godly mother who has always been that mature woman in the faith who has poured her life into mine. I never felt I needed anyone else. I have never felt un-shepherded or mentor-less. However, recently I’ve embarked on a new journey in my life of home schooling my children. For the first time that I can remember I've felt sort of alone and abandoned in the wilderness- in search of an instruction manual that doesn’t exist. By God’s grace, I ended up in the blog world and soon found many mentors- Christian women who are experienced homeschoolers willing to share their wisdom and encourage me. God is so good to always provide the guidance we need. I have no doubt that He has been behind my introduction to this wonderful group of women. The point is, we all need someone, lots of someones, especially older and more experienced someones, in our lives to help us grow. We are not individual Lone Rangers on this quest for sanctification and giving glory to God. We are part of a body of believers. We need other believers and they need us. They have something to offer us and we have something to offer others of them. This is not rocket science, but how do we pull it off, especially in a church with segregated Sunday school classes?

Here are some of my thoughts and I would love to hear your thoughts, as well.

1. Cross-generational fellowship. We have a meal at our church on Wednesday nights. This is something very stressful and difficult for the sweet women who prepare the meal (I’m not one of them), but it’s a tremendous blessing to the rest of us. The casual and relaxed atmosphere of a meal (and standing in line for it) often provides opportunities for discussion that the more rigid Sunday morning schedule does not allow for. We also have a fellowship meal after church on Sundays every other month or so. These are often potluck or sometimes catered (in this case it’s subsidized by the church and everyone chips in $2-3/ adult). My mother-in-law started a mother-daughter banquet that we have for the women each year around Mother’s Day. My girls look forward to it all year because it gives them the chance to dress up and have a formal banquet-style meal. (I told you they don’t get out much.) Often times fellowships occur within Sunday school classes which can be a hinderance to getting to know those outside of our classes. Making the extra effort for cross-generational fellowship will pay-off as we form relationships with Christians both older and younger than us.

2. Cross-generational ministry. I’m going to admit to you right now that this is 99% theory in my life, but it’s my goal for our family and I desperately want it to be reality. If you remember, the initial reason behind having deacons to serve in the church was to care for the widows. We’ve come a long way from that, haven’t we? The widow is terribly neglected in the church today. We think because they get social security and Medicare that they’re all taken care of and need nothing from us. This is an example of the state coming in and enabling the church to not take care of its members. You might think you’re glad they do, but remember they tax you to do it and don’t think they don’t keep a nice cut for themselves! Ok, so maybe most widows today are not needy in the sense they were in the NT church. But families have so much to offer to seniors in our church, especially widows. We have some friends who have ministered weekly in a nursing home for more than 20 years. We had the privilege of joining them several times and I was amazed at how much the seniors there loved my children. We didn’t actually DO anything. We just worshiped with them and talked to them. I think sometimes we underestimate what the simple things like this, sharing of ourselves, can mean to someone who spends most of their life alone. The church is the body of Christ, we are to do what we think Christ would do for these saints. Every time I have taken my kids to minister to or visit a senior in our church (and I can count them on one hand), it has been a blessing for all of us. Isn’t it funny how you start out thinking you’re doing something for God and He ends up using the one you’re trying to bless to bless you? The church is supposed to be a family and as such we are supposed to genuinely care for one another.

3. Discipleship. Jesus could have handed each of His disciples a scroll and said, “Here, read this.” But, He didn’t. His style of ministry was relational. Most of what He did was teach them the Scriptures, but He did this in many ways and as He walked with them, ate with them, worked with them, lived with them. In short, He fulfilled the command of Deuteronomy 6 with His disciples. He kept a constant open line of communication with them about the Word. He taught them by quoting and explaining the Scriptures. He taught them through illustrations they could relate to. He taught them by His example or testimony. He taught them through parables or stories that made difficult truths easier to comprehend. He employed many methods, but He was always teaching His disciples. So concerned was He for them that He doesn’t leave them alone when He must return to heaven. He promises them the Helper, the Holy Spirit, that will continue to guide them in His absence. So, Jesus is our example. The Great Commission of Mathew 28 places on us this same responsibility of teaching others. Titus 2 exhorts the older women “to admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, and obedient to their own husbands, that the Word of God may not be blasphemed.” The older men are to “exhort the young men to be sober-minded” and to provide for them an example of good works and integrity. If we have age-segregated Sunday school and fellowship (which usually occurs within the SS classes), we have to work doubly hard to bring older and younger women together and older and younger men together. (I wonder if this wasn’t one of the reasons the early church tended to segregate men and women. Families were worshiping together at home, but when they met together with other believers they were trying to encourage one another as the Bible commands.)

An informal way this can be accomplished is through mixed-age Bible studies. We have two women’s Bible studies within our small church and a few of us also go to a local Community Bible Study class, too. In each of these Bible studies, we are placed among Christian women of different ages. I have been in Bible studies as a younger woman with only women my age and the fellowship was very different. We were tempted to compare houses, swap husband stories, and complain about our toddlers and lack of “me time”. Talk among young women often centers around rather shallow topics. I love being in my Bible studies now with women of all ages and walks of life. Each week I’m encouraged by their wisdom, devotion to the Lord, and selfless service. Have you ever noticed that women with young children tend to be more into surviving the chaos of their homes and women with older kids tend to bear the brunt of church ministry? I figure if I rub elbows with these women long enough, they may start to rub off on me. Of course, I’m also getting older. (Not exactly a controlled scientific experiment.) But we’re not experimenting, we’re being Biblical. God tells us we need each other and we need to be in relationships with women older and younger than us. I’ve heard of some churches having more formal mentorship programs. I’m sure there is a variety of methods to accomplish this, but we cannot neglect teaching one another in the church, and remember that this will take place within the context of everyday life. I was blessed to meet a godly older woman on a mission trip to Poland when I was in college and she has been faithful to keep touch with me ever since (15+ years). She traveled from Arkansas to California for my college graduation and to Texas for my wedding. We had a wonderful time with her and her husband this October when we visited them. She’s 90 and still praying for me and encouraging me, mostly by email. God will provide these people in our lives, but we have to be on the look-out and not neglect these wonderful opportunities for friendship.

Above are Twinkle Toes and Mr. Monk with my dear friend who has been a mentor to me in the faith.

Technology has allowed us to isolate ourselves from one another in a way that is probably detrimental to our better good. In the book Better Off by Eric Brende, an MIT graduate student and his wife move in with a very conservative group of Amish for 18 months in order to determine for themselves whether technology really makes them happy. What they found is that not having the use of technology required them to rely on their neighbors to a degree that brought strong bonds of friendship like they hadn’t known before. I’m not suggesting we abandon technology, although I did turn off our answering machine a few years ago, I’m merely suggesting we attempt to reach out to others and allow ourselves to need others, as well, for the purpose of building strong relationships within our church. Jesus did not try to change the lives of His disciples without investing His life in theirs. We cannot have Biblical discipleship in our churches unless we first provide a means of older and younger men and women to connect in friendship.

Not to pound this point into a pulp, but the hour we spend in Sunday school each week is not going to make or break us. There is nothing wrong with seniors having fellowship with one another or young marrieds spending an hour each week with other people in the same phase of life as they are. What is dangerous is staying exclusively within these segregated groups, almost like clicks, and not seeking out relationships within the rest of the church. Unless you’re just extremely outgoing and on the lookout for opportunities around you, you might benefit from joining a mixed-age Bible study so you can have this weekly time of Titus 2-like encouragement and fellowship. And as you are built-up by “older” women in your life, you can begin to seek out “younger” women to pass the wisdom along to. God has provided us with a model of mentorship. It can be formal or informal, one on one or in a small group, local or long-distance, as long as we’re careful not to neglect this important means of spiritual growth. For it is when the church grows together in maturity, in good works, in love for one another, and in holiness that God is most glorified.

Plugging the hole in the sinking ship of Sunday school

If you’ve been following my series on the family integrated church, you know that the hallmark feature of the FIC model is the absence of age-segregated Sunday school classes. And if you read my post on an alternative to youth groups, you know the statistics are in on Sunday school and youth programs, and it’s not looking good. I suggested in that post that we have two choices in light of the failure of our Sunday school/youth programs in the modern church. We can either abandon them entirely in favor of a family-integrated approach. Or we can attempt to fix our Sunday school/youth programs so that they will be more successful at training up our children in the Lord. This post is devoted to the later option. Many of us are parents and/or Sunday school teachers. Some of you, like my husband, may be pastors. We all want to do what we can in our sphere of influence to make a difference in the lives of our youth. So, what can we do to plug the hole in the sinking ship of our Sunday school programs?

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1. Parental involvement is key. Remember that Deuteronomy 6 is clear that it’s the responsibility of the parents to teach their children about the Lord throughout the day every day. You can be Biblical and send your child to Sunday school one hour a week, but it all hinges on your involvement. If you are a parent, talk to your child’s teacher and stay up to date on what your child is learning in Sunday school. Actually read any take-home literature and let their lesson serve as a conversation starter for you to take up where the teacher left off. If you have concerns about the SS curriculum talk to an elder or change churches if the material is not sound. If you are a teacher try to involve the parents as much as possible. Give them a heads up on Scripture passages the kids are supposed to be memorizing and encourage the parents to work with their kids throughout the week. You can’t make it happen, but you can facilitate it through open lines of communication. Lots of times the parents are willing, but feel inadequate or don’t know where to start. Tell them what you’re studying and encourage them to talk with their kids at home. For that matter, encourage the kids to talk with their parents about it as well. If you’re a pastor, try to encourage these open lines of communication between teachers and parents. The key is that the Sunday school teacher is only to come alongside and help the parents in their God-given responsibility to train up their children. I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating. One hour per week is not going to make or break your child’s faith. Far more important is the day in day out spiritual life of their home. Is the Bible highly regarded in their home? Do their parents pray with them and talk to them about spiritual matters? Do they worship with their families at home or is worship a once a week activity? In general, so go the parents, so go the children. We cannot hope to change a generation of children in one hour per week. We must win the parents in order to win the children.

2. Add family-integrated classes. This is really an extension of the first point of parental involvement. I shared with you previously that my husband has recently started a family-integrated youth class to take the place of a youth group. Teens and parents attend Sunday school together. This is great because it addresses the issue of parents not knowing where to start and is perfect for parents who are new believers. Parents and kids are studying God’s Word together and their bonds are strengthened in the process. The teens see that the parents’ faith is real and that their parents are investing themselves in their lives. This philosophy could also be extended to fellowship activities in which parents and youth fellowship together. In our church we’ve only experimented with the middle school/high school age group, but some version of this could certainly be applied to every age. I teach a catechism class on Wednesday nights and have often thought how awesome it would be if the parents could participate in even a small part of that each week. Maybe we can implement that in the future.

3. Teach the whole Bible. Ken Ham in his book Already Gone suggests world view training in Sunday school. I would argue that the Bible is enough, but so often the Bible is not taught in its entirety. When we give our kids little snippets of the Bible they come away with a skewed view of who God is. If they don’t know God, how can they worship Him? For example, a common tactic of the modern church is to teach only snippets of the NT. They go heavy on God’s grace and love, while neglecting to teach His holiness and wrath. This type of education lends itself to heresies such as “easy believism”, the kind of thinking that since I’m saved by grace I’m free to live however I want. That since I walked an aisle or raised my hand or repeated some prayer, I'm part of God's family and saved even if I show zero signs of spiritual fruit. Some refer to this as “cheap grace”. My husband and I spent a year at a church that taught God’s grace to the exclusion of His holiness and wrath. We never once heard a sermon encouraging holy living. You can imagine my husband’s difficult task as pastor of college and career young adults. They could live it up all week long and then be released of any guilt Sunday morning. This “cheap grace” made it very difficult to inspire them toward holiness. I am no expert on Sunday school curricula, but I’ve taught from several and love, love, love Desiring God ministries SS curricula. I’ve been so impressed with them and highly recommend them to you. I’m teaching 2nd and 3rd graders “In the Beginning... Jesus”, which teaches how the whole Bible beginning in Genesis reveals our need for and God’s promise of a Savior. Our kids are learning that God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow! We should not neglect any of God’s Word in our Sunday school curricula. Likewise, our pastors should preach the whole counsel of God. We may pay lip service to the sufficiency of Scripture, but if we’re only teaching a portion of it, what good will that do us?

4. Use qualified teachers. I’m afraid we’ve become so desperate in our quest to “fill slots” for our Sunday school program that we’ve dropped our standards along the way. The Bible establishes qualifications for teaching elders in I Timothy 3 and Titus 1. Why not apply these same standards to Sunday school teachers? Are our children of less value than the adults in our churches? A better question might be, isn’t the accurate handling of the Word of God that important? If you go to a church that screens their Sunday school teachers by checking for a heartbeat first and then maybe running a criminal background check at best, you should probably screen them yourself. If you’re satisfied then great, the Lord has blessed you with someone to come alongside you and help you train up your child. If not, then remove your child from that class. If you’re a pastor, disciple your Sunday school teachers. Know to whom you’ve entrusted the teaching of God’s Word in your church and take it seriously. My husband and I laugh now, but we look back at some of the Sunday school teachers we’ve had through the years and it’s scary. Desperation can be a powerful force to be reckoned with, but don’t let it get the best of you. If you don’t have qualified teachers, disband Sunday school until you’ve trained up leaders. Don’t settle for warm bodies or good intentions. Not everyone is meant to be a teacher, thus the collective sharing of individual gifts for the mutual benefit of the body of Christ.

What else? What other suggestions do you have? Remember, the Bible does not prohibit others from teaching your children. I homeschool my kids and my husband and I take training our children up in the Lord seriously, but show me a Scripture where parents are prohibited from allowing others to assist them in training their children. We have freedom here to use our best discretion, but we must not throw out our own responsibility which is paramount. I’m so grateful for the children I’ve had the opportunity to teach. Kids soak up the Word of God and I’m amazed at the depth of understanding my 2nd and 3rd graders are able to grasp. I think the family integrated model of doing church together as a family is wonderful. But, I also think we can separate for 1 hour per week if we exercise discernment in the points discussed above. Remember, the Hebrews allowed for the training of young men in the Torah by rabbis. Paul, himself studied under one of the most famous rabbis of his time. Timothy did learn the Scriptures from his grandmother and mother, but he also became Paul’s protégé. The Reformers held catechism classes. Men go to seminaries to study theology and learn to be expositors of the Word (warning: some do this better than others!). I’m just saying, there’s nothing wrong in and of itself in allowing teachers to assist you in training up your children.

Maybe there is no FIC where you live. Or maybe God is calling you to make a difference in your church and family where you are. Almost Gone reports that young adults who grew up in Sunday school are leaving the church in droves when they graduate from high school. There’s something wrong with our existing Sunday school model, but by making the changes above I believe we can make our Sunday school classes Biblical. And there is no higher goal than to be Biblical. That is our ultimate standard and we must not create an additional one.

Is the family-integrated church Biblical? part II

Ok, last time I told you about the history of the segregation of men and women in the church. It’s not easy to find references to this since it doesn’t seem to be of too much importance to most authors of church history. I have learned something else though and wanted to share it with you.
The Puritans didn’t all segregate men and women. First off, the term Puritans is rather broad, so the sources I read before that alluded to the segregation were obviously using the term more narrowly than I was or were not aware of other practices. I’ve recently learned from talking with my husband (my favorite part of traveling together!), who loves studying the history of church architecture, that early Congregationalists (the more independent of the Puritans) filled their sanctuaries with booths from which individual families could worship. This was a hearkening back to the Festival of Booths during which time Israelites would live in booths for a week to remind them of their deliverance out of Egypt and sojourn in the desert. Anyway, I find this so interesting. We might ask ourselves why worship in booths? Maybe this allowed each family to worship together free from other distractions. You might wonder, what about widows or widowers? I think it is peculiar to the last 100 years or so for a widow or widower to live in a place without any children. It’s likely that most single adults had extended family with which they could worship. Being isolated within a booth would probably also help toddlers and small children to be more content and not so tempted to get up and stroll around the sanctuary or talk to other church members.

Anyway, the point of my sharing this with you is that according to JI Packer even the Puritans disagreed amongst themselves about Puritan forms of worship. This leads me into the concluding portion of my series on the family-integrated church. Since the Bible is silent on many details of how to worship, like where people are to sit and whether they are to sit together as a family or separate according to gender or age, there is some freedom on how a church will worship. The main thing is that we remain focused on how God desires to be worshiped and seek His will in the Scriptures. The main thing is to be about bringing glory to God and not convenience to man. The main thing is to be concerned with contrite hearts and not entertainment. However, if this could only be accomplished by one particular form, the Bible would give us more specific instructions as to what that looks like.

(I just couldn't resist this worship cartoon. They have obviously lost focus on what matters in this church!)

I’m sure that in early churches where men and women were segregated during worship, it was with the intention that this would make worship more spiritual, and less worldly. After all, when we’re in heaven we won’t be so concerned about male/female relations as we are now. Certainly co-ed worship then will be pure and free of the distractions that can interfere with co-ed worship today. Also, when in heaven, we women will have finally gained the control over our tongue that so often eludes us now. Titus 2 mentoring becomes easier in a male/female segregated church, too. At any rate, it is my suggestion that whatever forms a church adopts for worship, if the elders are desiring to be Biblical and are prayerfully searching the Scriptures, then they can accomplish this in a number of ways. Some Puritans divided the men from the women. Some provided family booths for worship. Either way they were attempting to draw the attention of the worshipers away from the things of the world and onto the things of God. God can be glorified by either form.

Although I don’t believe it’s the only Biblical or historical form, I’m still very much in favor of the family-integrated church model. Let me explain. In every generation you have a remnant that is the true church. However, the majority of the church usually goes the way of the world. This doesn’t look the same in every generation, because world cultures change. In our generation, it is of my opinion that the assault on the family has become a major cultural attack on the church and has provided a huge stumbling block to the effectiveness of the church. (When I say effectiveness I’m talking about the church fulfilling its Biblical design to glorify God and build-up believers to maturity through the preaching of God’s Word. One way to judge church effectiveness is to compare the church to the world and see how different it is. If we are truly set-apart from the world for godliness then we won’t look very much like the world.) Divorce rates are the same within the church as outside it. Feminism and homosexuality have also invaded the church. According to Barna, fewer than 10% of professing American Christian families read the Bible or pray together during a typical week (Revolutionary Parenting p. 31). The Biblical teachings of training up our children and disciplining them out of love are all but forgotten. Biblical discipleship and mentoring have been completely neglected by most modern churches, so wisdom has ceased to be passed on from the older generation to the younger. It is this void in our modern church that the family-integrated church fills.

The family-integrated church provides armor and ammunition to fight the attack on the family. The FIC is committed to equipping parents through Biblical discipleship to train their children up in the things of the Lord: Bible study, prayer, Scripture memory, devotion, worship. This is why I love the family-integrated church. Do I think the FIC is the only Biblical church model? NO! But, I can see why it’s gaining in popularity. The remnant is hungry for a church that will fulfill its obligations to the family. We crave instruction from the Bible that will counter the culture’s onslaught against the family (or as John Piper would put it quench the fiery darts of Satan that are flying about within our churches). Women who are treated as freaks in many churches because they have given up their career in order to stay home and devote themselves to their family crave encouragement. Men who are treated as male chauvinists because they take seriously the Biblical warning that he who does not provide for his own family is worse than an infidel likewise need encouragement. Children who do not watch television 24/7 and are being taught the Scriptures at home and worship with their families desire friends they can relate to. This is why I started looking into the FIC movement in the first place. It satisfies so many desires of my heart. But, we must not put words in God’s mouth. If He had determined this as the only proper way to “do church” He would have told us so. And He didn’t. I think God wants godly men in each age to discern the best ways to combat the culture and stay true to Scripture. And I think the FIC does a marvelous job of this.

However, many of us do not go to a FIC and for many of us it may not be possible. So, what I want to do in my next few posts is look at how we can apply some of the principles we’ve been looking at within a non-FIC. In other words, how can we fight off the cultural attack on the family within the modern church? How can we have a Sunday school program, but make it Biblical? How can we do Biblical discipleship and mentoring in a non-segregated (men and women) and non-FIC? How can we encourage Biblical fellowship and sharing of all things in a mega church? I hope you’ll stay with me for the conclusion of my series and I will especially value your comments at this time, as well. Do you go to a non-FIC? If so, what does your church do, or what do you do outside of your church or in addition to it, to encourage Biblical family life? I’m very excited about the next few posts and would like to challenge you to let go of all assumptions until we finish. Thank you for your support and participation.

Is the family-integrated church Biblical or traditional?

I’m about to leave town for a couple of days so I wanted to leave you with something controversial. I hope I can get some of you stirred up by this, I know I have been.

For the first question, as to whether the family-integrated church is Biblical, I want to look at both the Old and New Testament church practices.

1. Did Israelite families worship together? I don’t know that we can be certain, but it does not appear that they did. I have searched the Scriptures and cannot find specific instructions from God regarding the court of women either in His instructions for the tabernacle given to Moses or His instructions for the Temple given to Solomon. However, Herod’s temple definitely contained an outer court for Gentiles, a court for women (and children), and a court for circumcised Jewish men. The Talmud, which describes the Temple, was written between the 2nd and 5th centuries AD so it must be referring to Herod’s renovation of the second Temple that had been originally built 500 years previously. My question is, and I cannot find this answer, was the court of women an addition by men or was it part of the original plan? At any rate, in the Jewish tradition men and women have worshipped separately for a long time. Only circumcised Jews were allowed into the outer court of the tabernacle so there seems to be some Biblical basis for this, although there was no separate court of the Tabernacle designated by God for women.



It’s hard not to speculate as to why this was the case. Probably it had something to do with headship and the covenant relationship of God with Israel. Of headship, God placed the husband at the head of each individual family, the Levites He dedicated to Himself, and the sons of Aaron (who could minister in the inner court of the Tabernacle) He chose to serve Him as priests. Of the covenant relationship, circumcision, the sign of that relationship, was performed on males only. Not that women could not be in covenant relationship with God, but that only the men bore that sign, which surely reminded each Jewish male of his responsibilities to his offspring who would also fall under that covenant relationship. These are just some of my thoughts, but I would love to hear yours.

2. There also seems to be some evidence of the segregation of the sexes during worship in the early church. Perhaps this stems in part from the concern over order during the worship service (1 Corinthians 14:33-35). It seems that some women in Corinth were interrupting the service and Paul chastised them for that. Other texts in the New Testament reinforce this teaching that the roles and requirements of men and women in the church are different (1 Corinthians 11:3-15, 1 Timothy 2:9-15). Of course, the first Christians were Jews and by the way, Orthodox Jewish synagogues still segregate men and women.

Again, it’s tempting to speculate as to the reason for the segregation of men and women during worship, but in the end it doesn’t really matter. The point I’m making playing devil’s advocate tonight is that women and children were segregated from the men during worship in the early church. It seems even in their house churches, the women worshipped separately. I’d like to think it was a matter of mere pragmatics. The women were probably busy preparing the fellowship meal and tending to young children. But, it could also have originated out of an attempt for a less distracting worship service. Women can be distracting at times, especially by dressing in either an immodest way or a haughty manner (with fancy jewelry, etc. see 1 Tim 2:9 and 1 Peter 3:3) which would attract attention to themselves instead of on the Lord where everyone’s attention should rest during worship. Women can also be distracting and even disruptive with their speech (1 Corin 14:33-35). Some women don’t know when to be quiet and others seem bent on discussing matters better left unsaid. Let me remind you at this point that I am a woman and I’m merely musing (thus the name of my blog) about why the early church may have decided women should worship separately from the men.

3. It is unclear to me when this separation of men and women in church began to change. I’ve read that even during the middle ages it was not uncommon for men and women to gather at public meetings separately. I’m not sure what the Reformers taught on this, but I would like to know. I find it interesting that the Puritans (whom I love) segregated men and women during worship. There didn’t seem to be the same distinction the Jews made of the men being closer and the women farther from the center of worship, though. The Puritans would separate right down the middle aisle with men on one side and women on the other. I read that the Amish still do this when they gather to worship together every other week.

So I hope I left you with some stimulating thoughts. I guess the question we need to ask ourselves is where did the early church fathers get it right and where did they go wrong? God certainly ordains different roles for men and women, but does not consider us different in worth or standing (Galations 3:28). We also know Jesus welcomed children to Him and praised their simple faith. I sure wouldn’t want to argue theology or church practice with early church fathers or Jonathan Edwards for that matter! And I would really like to know what Calvin taught on this. Maybe I should ask my husband- especially seeing as how I’m supposed to be learning from him! (1 Corinthians 14:35) Well, have I succeeded in totally confusing you, or are you convinced that I’m a complete freak? What do you think about this? Was the segregation of the sexes merely pragmatic? If so, why does it no longer apply? Or was there some doctrinal basis for the segregation of men and women in worship? If so, why does it no longer apply? I can’t wait to see what you all have to say about this!