The Pastor’s Kid: An Interview with Barnabas Piper

Being a pastor's kid (PK) is not something most of us can relate to, and yet the PK is someone we cannot avoid. PKs live in a world different from ours, a world where their family's every move is under intense scrutiny. But even if we're not a PK, it's important to understand the unique difficulties they face.

Barnabas Piper has written a book, The Pastor's Kid: Finding Your Own Faith and Identity, hoping to use his experience to encourage PKs to trust in Christ and to seek community in the midst of public and private struggle. It is also an instructive book for those of us who want to love our pastor's kid better.

Barnabas was kind enough to answer a few questions for GCD, and I hope it will encourage you to buy the book.

BRANDON: What made you feel like this message was the one to turn into a book?

BARNABAS: I was reluctant, at first, to write a book from the perspective of PKs. I doubted whether it would connect with enough people and wondered if it might seem whiny or navel-gazing. But as I corresponded with PK after PK I heard the same stories and perspectives over and over again, and they meshed with mine almost perfectly. I saw a persistent need and consistent desire. After I wrote a couple articles on being a PK the responses flooded in—each one hit a nerve. I saw a clear void in resources speaking to and for PKs both to encourage them and help their parents too.

BRANDON: Pastors have the unique expectation of discipling everyone in the church at the same time, in some form or fashion. How did this affect your dad (John Piper) in discipleship at home with you and your siblings?

BARNABAS: My dad was always a preaching pastor. His calling was to preach and his gift was to preach, and he was uniquely gifted at it. For him, discipleship of the church was primarily in consistent faithful exposition of the Bible. It was similar at home, just without the booming voice and gesticulations. He exposited and applied scripture. It was a strength and a weakness. The consistent pointing to God’s word laid a foundation for understanding, but it sometimes fell short of feeling personal and relational. There are dads, especially pastors, who use scripture verses like a magic cure for every ailment. My dad was not one of those.  He was never trite in his use of verses and he didn’t proof text to make a point. Sometimes, though, I just wanted normal conversation and connection and his default was digging into the Bible.

BRANDON: Pastor's kids often carry the unfair weight of being expected to be perfect because of who their dad is. How can people in the church help pastor's kids feel more "normal"?

BARNABAS: The short answer is “treat them like you do all the other kids.” PKs get singled out for misbehaving and even small indiscretions get noticed and reprimanded or reported. Where one kid might be called out Sunday School for being a distraction the PK  will have his mother or father called about the same sort of incident. PKs often get singled out to answer questions in Sunday school even if they don’t want to or don’t really know the answer. In fact, not knowing isn’t really allowed either. It creates an expectation of perfection, or at least a faking of it. Last, let them ask questions, doubt, wonder, explore, and find faith. Too often faith is expected of PKs and what is actually there isn’t a relationship with Jesus but a recitation of what is expected.

BRANDON: What advice would you give pastors seeking to better disciple their own kids?

BARNABAS: Converse, don’t ever preach. Relate, don’t always council. Connect with your kids over what they enjoy and over what you enjoy. This means have a hobby that can be shared (not just reading or studying). Listen, don’t always teach. Sometimes they need to be heard and to know you care. Show them you enjoy being with them. And admit to your sins, not just to being a sinner, but to actual sins. Then ask their forgiveness. These kinds of actions create an atmosphere of trust, respect, and openness. Such an atmosphere is where faith is worked out, questions are more safely posed, and a real relationship with Jesus can be exemplified and developed.

BRANDON: What advice would you give pastor's kids struggling with the pressures they face?

BARNABAS: Trust somebody. Find one or two friends. (You don’t really need more than that.) No they might not totally understand, but they care. It will help you process your struggles to talk through them. You’ll begin to see the holes that exist in your life that only Jesus can fill.

Then look for Jesus. Sure, you’ve heard all about him for your whole life, but go look for him. What you see may differ greatly than the impression you have of him. He’s not your daddy’s boss. He’s not a killjoy or a judge. He’s not an angelic, halo-wearing, choir boy. He is profoundly powerful, gracious, loving, and present. What find see when you look for Jesus is that you find him. He will introduce himself to you in a way that is so real that all those pressures and challenges and issues become something that may still hurt but are manageable and secondary.

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Brandon D. Smith is Executive Director of Gospel-Centered Discipleship and serves in editorial roles for The Criswell Theological Review and The Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood. He is also Editor of Make, Mature, Multiply: Becoming Fully-Formed Disciples of Jesus. He is proud to be Christa’s husband and Harper Grace’s daddy. Follow him on Twitter: @BrandonSmith85.

Pursuing God’s Vision for Marriage

Many of my friends walked down the wedding aisle to the hymn “Be Thou My Vision.” The melody has an ethereal quality about it. And the lyrics—to say that the lyrics are meaningful would be a gross understatement. I want to walk through every day of my married life embracing the truths of this song in my heart.

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart; Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art . . .

So many things clamor for my attention when I wake up every morning. Regardless of the busyness or dullness of the day, I want the greatest reality to hit me—that the God whose name is I AM is worthy of my praise, my thoughts, and my obedience.

Will the damp towels and clothes left strewn about the room from my husband’s morning routine matter to me when the atoning work of Christ on the cross is my vision for the day? In my husband’s case, leaving towels and clothes draped around the room is not an affront meant to hurt me. But, what if it was? Is God so clearly my vision that I could persist in clinging to his grace in Christ even when my marriage relationship is strained?

Thou my best Thought, by day or by night, Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light . . .

When the tragedies and discouragements of life threaten to overtake our marriage then I want to think on God’s faithfulness by day and by night. Will the urgency of the day’s demands weigh so heavily on my heart and bring out the nag in me when the indwelling Holy Spirit is my comfort and peace?

Waking or sleeping, God’s presence sheds light on how he does all things for his glory. We have no cause to fear the darkness. Today—right now—we can relate to one another by grace, hoping in the future grace to be shown to us in the last day when Christ returns.

In Ephesians Paul describes the marriage relationship as a reflection of the heavenly reality of Christ’s marriage to the church.

Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her. (Eph. 5:24-25)

Paul goes on to quote Genesis 2:24 to underscore the significance of this mysterious relationship:

Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

No wonder the second stanza of “Be Thou My Vision” strikes such a chord with couples about to be united as one flesh:

Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word; I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord . . .

I wonder if I could dub this song over the soundtrack on the VHS tape of our wedding. Or better yet, what if grace covered over the soundtrack of every petty argument, stray word, and rude remark I’ve ever made to my husband?

The great news is that Jesus has already done that. And he doesn’t just dub over the soundtrack of such things. He removes our sins from us as far away as the east is from the west (Ps. 103:12). By the shed blood of Christ, we are forgiven. The price for my peace-filled, joy-enjoying, grace-exchanging marriage is the precious blood of the spotless Lamb of God. Who am I to scorn the sacrifice that Jesus made?—so I can hold onto my scoffing pride, self-righteous anger, and arrogant impatience toward my husband?

Thou my great Father, I Thy true son; Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one . . .

What a poetic reminder of the priority of fellowship with God and the preeminence of our relationships with him as the foundation for our relationships with our spouses. The power that we need to love our spouses is supplied by God according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus (Phil. 4:19). In Christ, we can serve our partner with the strength that God supplies so that God gets the glory (1 Pt. 4:11).

Be thou my breastplate, my sword for the fight; be thou my whole armor, be thou my true might . . .

My power for holiness is from God, and I see him most clearly in his word, the Bible. The Bible says that God’s grace, not fear or regret, is the song of my life. It sounds like a Christian cliché to say, “We’re together at the foot of the cross.” But when we understand that what puts us at the mercy of God at the foot of the cross is our pervasive inability to love God and each other as we ought, then all of a sudden our sin isn’t so trite anymore.

My husband’s sin isn’t so harmless, either. We’re sinners married to sinners. We sin against each other, sometimes we’re in sin together, and we even leave our sin lying around for our spouse to stumble over. We must see ourselves together at the foot of the cross. Both of us need God to look favorably upon us through Christ’s atoning sacrifice. The blood that covers my sins is the same blood that covers my husband’s sins.

Even if I were not married to a Christian man. . . God has freely given his Son and offers to all the body and blood of his Son Jesus if we will repent and believe. Who am I, a sinner saved by grace, to look on anyone as more desperate for that grace than I am? If I have Jesus then all I know is grace and God’s future for me is grace upon grace. By that grace, we can love our spouses as God has instructed us.

Be thou my soul’s shelter, be thou my strong tower: O raise thou me heavenward, great Power of my power . . .

And what of the millions of little, mundane things that occur each day? What about my sharp tongue, for example? If God did not withhold his only Son giving us all his riches in Christ Jesus, who am I to withhold words of kindness from my husband? Through Christ in me I can speak the truth in love as he commands and compels me. Instead of merely biting my tongue and avoiding hurtful words, by God’s grace my tongue is loosed to edify and build up my husband instead.

When Jesus died on the cross he reconciled us to God and he wrote his song of reconciliation by grace across our entire lives. God has shown us grace and we can be conduits of grace to others.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise: be thou mine inheritance now and always . . .

The reward I am looking for in loving my husband is not bound up in how my husband responds to me. How our souls can be refreshed and our marriages strengthened when we believe: “Thou mine Inheritance, now and always; Thou and Thou only, first in my heart.” A godly husband is a gift from the Lord, and I do enjoy the gift God has given me. But the gift of my husband is meant to draw me to worship the Giver.

Because we are all so prone to worship our gifts, this hymn reminds us to pray, “Be thou and thou only the first in my heart; O Sovereign of heaven, my treasure thou art.”

“Be Thou My Vision” is an epic song to walk down the aisle to. The triumph of God’s grace in Christ is an even greater song to dance to by faith.

—

Gloria Furman lives in Dubai with her husband Dave, a pastor at Redeemer Church of Dubai. They have four young kids. Gloria is the author of Glimpses of Grace: Treasuring the Gospel in Your Home (Crossway, 2013) and Treasuring Christ When Your Hands Are Full: Gospel Meditations for Busy Moms (Crossway, 2014). You can read her blog at GloriaFurman.com.

Moving Beyond Dad Issues

Father’s Day—some are grateful it’s just one day. There are many fathers who have heaped unbearable burdens upon their children with unrealistic demands. To you, this day reminds you of failure, not measuring up, not being who dad wanted you to be. For others, dad subtracted meaning from your life. Your dad just cut out on you, left mom for another woman, a career mistress, or never entered your life at all.

How do you respond to your father while edging out on the ice of fatherhood yourself?

Others see Father’s Day as an opportunity to honor someone they’re grateful for every day. Dad reminds you of warm approval, strong godly character, firm discipline, and vibrant faith. You don’t know how good you got it but you know it’s good. Fathers possess incredible power over their children, for good or for ill, and a new generation of Christian fathers are emerging with very poor role models. Is it possible to redeem your patriarchal past? How do you respond to your father while edging out on the ice of fatherhood yourself?

What to Do with a Not So Great Dad

St. Augustine had great mom and a not so great dad. Throughout his Confessions, (a Western classic every Christian should read), Augustine reflects on his mother’s prayerful faithfulness and his dad’s worldliness. In a passage in Book 2, he extols his father for providing for his education in literature and rhetoric. He notes that his father took great pains to secure the necessary finances. It is hard to imagine the Western Church without an educated Augustine. His books, ideas, and turns of phrase have been admired by many, believer and non.

Augustine shows us how to honor our fathers, even when they were less than honorable. Even if your father was absent and just cut a check for child support, at least he did that. Instead of ripping cynically on his absent dad, Augustine shows us how to carry out the Christian principle of “honor your father” by searching for anything positive and honoring him for that.

But what about his Dad’s absence, or worse, his very real, damaging presence?

Augustine describes his father’s neglect: “father took no pains as to how I was growing up before you [God], or as to how chaste I was, as long as I was cultivated in speech, even though I was a desert, uncultivated for you, O God, who are the one true and good Lord of that field which is my heart.”

Though he received a financial deposit, Augustine was raised in spiritual poverty by his father. His father approved winkingly over his sexual exploits, a badge of manhood. He sent his son in the wrong direction. Dad held the career high—a rhetorician—and Christ low. Augustine repeatedly reflects on his struggle with mistresses and sexual temptation remarking that he was “in love with love.”

Moving Beyond Dad Issues

Until he was conquered by a holy love: “You love, but are not inflamed with passion; you are jealous, yet free from care . . . who will help me, so that you will come into my heart and inebriate it, to the end that I may forget my evils and embrace you, my one good?”

The prison of his father’s neglect was redeemed by the heavenly Father’s attentive concern. Evils were slowly blotted out from his memory in the presence of the one, true Good. The way we move beyond our Dad issues isn’t to bury them, but to carry them to the Redeemer.

When I was preparing to become a father for the first time, I asked a good father friend for advice. He said, “Be a good dad by being a good son.” He was saying that fatherhood is less about technique and more about identity.

The more a man settles into the perfect love of God, the more his fathering becomes an approximation of the perfect Father. The more rooted you are in God’s approval, the more inclined you are to give it to your kids. The more you are aware of the holiness of God, the more you will call your children into his holiness—cultivating their soul. The more you are aware of God’s unfathomable grace, the more quick you will be to extend it to your children.

Dad, you have an opportunity to cultivate the soul of the next generation. You can point them to the “one true and good Lord of that field which is their heart.” You don’t have to be enough for them because God already is enough. Cultivate your soul and act like your heavenly Father toward your kids. Teach them the gospel, repent quickly, and be present—no perfection required—Jesus has that covered.

Be a good son, and you’ll be a good dad.

—

Jonathan K. Dodson (MDiv; ThM) serves as a pastor of City Life Church in Austin, Texas. He is the author of Gospel-Centered Discipleship, Unbelievable Gospel, and Raised? He has discipled men and women abroad and at home for almost two decades, taking great delight in communicating the gospel and seeing Christ formed in others. Twitter: @Jonathan_Dodson

Originally published at jonathandodson.org “How to Be a Good Dad (& What to Do with a Bad Dad)”

Raising Teens in the Shadows

Discipleship in the Teen Years

We all want our kids to experience salvation through Jesus at a young age, don’t we? We sense that the earlier they know and understand the gospel, the better. If they can grasp the penetrating love of God in a personal way, they will be spared many painful years of rebellion and grief. And so will we.

So we share the gospel with them from day one. We contextualize the truth for our little ones, reading to them from children’s storybook Bibles and singing songs about Jesus. We want them to understand, as best they can, that Jesus loves them, died for them, and has made a way for them to be close to God.

Some of them get it. Their little hearts embrace the truth and they ask Jesus to save them. We rejoice, knowing that their future is secure and that the Father holds them close.

But our job doesn’t end there.

What happens when that little heart grows into a bigger heart and questions the gospel he learned and believed as a kid? What happens when the joyful little girl who knew the love of Jesus begins to look shadowed and burdened, wondering if it all makes sense?

Both our teenagers expressed faith in Christ and his gospel at an early age. We are grateful for that and feel blessed that God drew them to himself. In our joy and relief, we have been tempted to relax, thinking our spiritual job as parents is complete. But we all know that isn’t the case. Ahead of our kids lies a long road of discipleship, and they need someone to show them the way, continuing to help them apply the gospel to the different stages of their lives.

Discipleship in the Shadows

One of our kids has lately found herself in a lonely place. We raised her on a diet of truth, but she is struggling to see how the truth she knew as a kid relates to the pain she knows now that she’s older.  She wonders whether faith in Jesus can make any real difference in her life. Or whether the whole thing falls into the category of bedtime stories and lullabies.

She’s at the point where the stories need to come true. The stories have always been true, of course, but now she needs to know them true. For real. For her.

Her struggle makes me sad. I want to fix it, erase it, or make it go away. I want to go back to the smiling days, the happy days, the days before the gray cloud moved in and settled over her soul. And our home.

There are days when I handle the shadows well. I understand her struggle and feel compassion for her. I am able, by God’s grace, to love her unconditionally and to wait patiently for the Spirit to work in her heart, to lead her back into the light. I have faith that God’s got her.

And then there are other days. Those days her struggle frustrates me. I want her to get over it, get past it, move away from it so that we can get back to living in light and joy. I take her resistance personally and think about holding her at arm’s length.

Those days I feel like I’m getting in the way.

“He didn’t let his sin hinder my progress”

Last Sunday we heard a moving testimony from guy in our church who did not, unfortunately, come to know Jesus as a child. He told us the story of how his sin took him into the wrong crowd in middle school, into drugs in high school, and eventually into a 6x9 prison cell with nothing but a metal bed and a Bible on the counter.

God came for him in that 6x9, making his word come alive in that young man’s soul. We rejoiced with him as he continued his story, showing how God rescued him and is using him to minister to other troubled teens in our city.

But the part of his story that gripped me was how he described his father. All through his years of teenage rebellion, he told how his father prayed for him. His father continued to love him, sometimes in a tough and unyielding way. His father had his own rebellious past, his own current struggles, and certainly felt an enormous amount of grief as his son repeated his past mistakes. But rather than punishing or berating, shaming or abandoning his son, this father persisted in praying for him. His son told us, “He didn’t let his sin hinder my progress.” He didn’t get in the way.

Loving Through the Shadows

As I attempt to love my daughter through her struggle, I am trying to get out of the way. I am trying not to let my sin hinder her progress. As I fluctuate between good days and bad days in regard to my flesh, I’d like to share with you with some common traps I’ve fallen into, places where my sin threatens to entangle both myself and my daughter. Maybe you can recognize these lies in your own parenting:

You’re ruining my peace. As we have transitioned from the golden years of elementary school into the turbulent waters of teen life, I have been tempted to resent the one who is disturbing the peace. I tend to blame the one struggling for threatening to take the rest of the family down with her.

You’re making me look bad. When my kids struggle spiritually, I can make it about myself. I worry that their struggle somehow tarnishes my reputation. Diminishes my ministry effectiveness. (This trap can especially ensnare those of us in vocational ministry.)

You’re my life’s work, and you’re failing. We pour ourselves into our kids, wanting more than anything for them to walk with Jesus. When they question, struggle, or even rebel, we get angry. They are not cooperating with our goals. Our life’s work seems to be in shambles.

Ugly, I know. These traps reveal some pretty nasty idols. We find ourselves no longer worshiping God, but worshiping peace or approval or our performance instead. When we give into these lies, we get in the way of what God is doing in our kids’ lives. We let our sin hinder their progress.

Get out of the way

I am learning to get out of the way. I am learning how to keep my sin from hindering my daughter’s progress. These practices help keep me out of fleshly idol-worshiping traps:

Remember the gospel. I need to hear the same gospel that she does. I need to remind myself of Jesus’ work on my behalf, and allow God’s kindness to lead me to repentance. As I confess my sin and receive God’s grace, I am able to express compassion toward my daughter and struggle with her rather than against her.

Run to Jesus. I also need to daily remind myself that my peace, approval, and significance are all found in Jesus, not in my circumstances or my performance. My relationship with Jesus is the only dependable place to find what I long for. I need to look to him to meet my needs, rather than placing that burden on my daughter.

Pray for grace. I am realizing that it’s going to take a lot of prayer to keep my sin out of the way. I need to begin each day with a plea for grace, for myself and for my daughter as we struggle together.

Don’t panic. I need to remember that the gospel is big enough for any struggle. God is faithful to hold those who belong to him close, forever. He is the one working in the heart of my child, and he will finish what he has begun.

Birth is painful. And there comes a time when the gospel needs to “re-birthed” in our kids’ hearts. They have been taught the truth early on, but at some point the truth needs to show itself big enough to grow along with them. Big enough for bigger hearts, bigger problems, bigger struggles. And here’s the good news: the truth of gospel is plenty big enough for us all, no matter what we’re facing. We just need to remind ourselves of that. And remind our kids.

So read the stories and sing the songs to your little ones, but don’t forget that one day they will grow up. And so will their problems. But don’t worry. God can handle the shadows. Walk with your kids, struggle with them, and pray for them, trusting God to work. And in the meantime, you might want to get out of the way.

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Lindsay Powell Fooshee is married to John, a pastor at Redeemer Community Church and church planter with Acts 29. They are raising 3 great kids in East Tennessee. Lindsay holds an M.A. in Christian Thought from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and blogs regularly at Kitchen Stool.

Bringing the Multiplication Mindset Home

Long days are draining. You need rest, but you’re not actually expecting it. You’re preparing yourself for children’s excited voices greeting you. You’re ramping up to mediate disputes between them, hopefully about who gets to hug you first. You also might greet a relieved spouse, fatigued from a long day of either being with the children or being at a long day of work. You’d think the daily re-assimilation into home would be seamless. But it isn’t, is it? Sometimes we are not spiritually or mentally prepared for it. Sometimes we are exhausted and our guard is down against pride and selfishness, resulting in ruinous family patterns.

Knowing this, practicing a routine that prepares the heart, soul, and mind for re-assimilation into family life is essential. It is an intentional discipline not just for your spiritual formation, but also for your wife’s and your children’s. It’s a small step taken as you lead and disciple them. In turn, you and they will duplicate the mindset in all other discipleship environments: school, work, extra-curricular environments, and third places. When we approach every place with this mindset, we are better prepared disciple multipliers.

Obviously, the mindset shift into a new environment is not always successfully executed. This is the case particularly for fathers or mothers re-entering home environments after a long day of work. That’s why I picked this one to discuss. It’s easy to re-engage home with work-brain. But when we shift to home-brain, much discipleship fruit is cultivated. And so is the model for your children to duplicate as they multiply disciples in other contexts (2 Tim. 2:2).

It takes only a few minutes each day to prepare our mindset. We can do this in our car before departing from work, or as we are driving home, or sitting in the driveway. It’s a really simple and classic process: shift your mindset, read Scripture, and pray.

1. Shift Your Mindset

Shifting our mindset is not some rote process. It is an intentional plan of engagement where we earnestly decide that what is ahead is more important than what is left behind. Thus, we plan to lay aside our pocket screens, ignore notifications, and push back any residual work until after little ones are tucked in bed. This is also when we place work cares upon Christ; anger, fear, anxiety are relinquished in him (1 Pet. 5:7).

We prepare our minds for inquiry. We want to be quizzical of how the day went: the joys, trials, conflicts, surprises—all that took place during our absence. And quite honestly, a stay-at-home spouse will crave adult conversation, so we must be prepared to listen.

We also want to enter with the posture of service. Typically, I am in the practice of swooping into the home and whisking all three children away for a walk or playtime at the community playground while my wife, who is the one staying at home in our case, gets 15-30 minutes of quiet solitude.

Most working dads—if they are honest—have a Ward Cleaver or George Banks expectation for home arrival: immaculate home, hot dinner, spotless and perfectly behaved tykes, and wife in a dress and pearls. My mindset is a little different. I’m hoping for no fire, flood, or other acts of God to have occurred. But most of the time, I’m certain a tornado hit our kid’s room.

However, we should have realistic expectations rather than idealistic expectations. God, fully anticipating our fallen condition, has been long in suffering with all our short failings. We, likewise, should follow in his step, not expecting a picture of Eden when we arrive home.

2. Read Scripture

Thomas Watson said, “The Scripture is the compass by which the rudder of our will is to be steered.” My will is prone to drift off a God-glorifying course due to the desires of my flesh. Scripture is what holds the course of the mindset.

It’s not enough to think on Scripture; we must share Scripture, too. We should be primary feeders of Scripture to our children. What if we had a Scripture to share with our children every time we returned home from work? How glorious would that be for our family? Not only would our will be set on the right course, but it sets a pattern for our children to be set on the right course with the right instrument to aid them: Scripture. When our mindset is built off Scripture, then it will be that much easier to mold our children’s minds towards the same end. In many ways, this will be effectively caught more than taught, as long as we are contagiously and earnestly conversant with our children about what the Lord is teaching us.

In Taking God at His Word, Kevin DeYoung says, “The word of God is more than enough for the people of God to live their lives to the glory of God” (55). He’s not just talking about Scripture’s sufficiency to tackle the tough question of apologetics, theology, and our wrestling with doubt. DeYoung is saying Scripture is sufficient for everyday people to live everyday lives to the glory of an extraordinary God. Scripture dishes up helpings of truths that sufficiently ground us in the fruit of the Spirit and armor us to wage war against our enemy.

Thus, we’re prepared to enter the foray of a potentially chaotic household. God’s Word serves as a sufficient implement of peace in our hearts and homes. That peace is the peace of Christ. For Ephesians 2:17 says, “And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.” That peace will then be spread afar by those whom we are training in our household to bear that peace to others. They will see us bring it, and they will long to share it with others.

3. Pray

You will regret watching too much TV, playing too much Candy Crush, and reading too many tweets. You will never regret praying too much. You can’t pray enough. Prayer is this incomprehensibly extraordinary gift where we have direct and full access to the God of the cosmos. He instructs us to ask for wisdom (Jas. 1:5) and to petition him with our requests (Phil. 4:6). Yet, we treat prayer like someone who picks a particular mobile carrier with unlimited talk minutes with a particular person, but who never actually called that person. That’s precisely what we have—full access; and that’s precisely what we do—full neglect.

Prayer doesn’t produce a desired outcome as much as it transforms our current outlook. When we earnestly pray for our family before arriving home, it reorients our family around God rather than our children or ourselves. Helplessly bringing every concern, fear, or potential conflict to the Lord sets us up for entire dependence upon him for resolution. So often we rack our brains on how we can provide solutions and fix problems. Perhaps those tensions or problems exist not to give us something to troubleshoot, but to direct us to shoot the message of our troubles up to heaven. They become a grappling hook that draws us up to God.

If we’re always praying about how we want things to change in our family, then it might just be us that require change. If nothing else, we need to open our eyes to the gift our spouse and children already are. They are a gift to steward, so we should ask God to show us how to steward, lead, and equip this gift as we prepare to commission them for gospel ministry.

So we shouldn’t just deliver requests to God, we should express thanks and praise to him for our family as well. Before you head home is a great time to do this. It will—just like reading Scripture—facilitate that right mindset you wish to have when you return home each day.

I know what Scripture says about praying in our closet, but there is something valuable about praising God’s answer to prayers before our spouse and children. If they never know that we’ve been praying for them, they will never have appreciation for God’s answered prayer. They will also not share the same value and import prayer into their mission contexts. So don’t just secretly pray for your family, openly discuss what you pray. Not only this, but solicit their prayer needs. That way, you can pray specifically for them as you are about to re-engage in your family context.

Multiplication in Mind

Our society is programmed to pull families further and further apart over time. This is not healthy; it is actually potentially harmful. The more families are apart, the more false doctrine and false teachers may slyly slink into the family and corrupt convictions. This could slay souls.

Those few hours that exist after work and before bedtime are critical. They are the hours that we have to build into our family the stronghold of a Christian worldview. We’re not just constructing a stronghold; we are training emissaries of our King. Our family will be sent out to herald good news to others. This means they must have first heard it from us, seen it demonstrated by us, tasted the fruit of it, and felt a stirring to multiply the process. Ones who have tasted the nectar of the gospel will naturally share it on to others.

—

Joey Cochran served as an Associate Pastor at Fellowship Bible Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma for four years before transitioning to be the Church Planting Intern at Redeemer Fellowship in St. Charles, Illinois under the supervision of Pastor Joe Thorn. Joey is a graduate of Dallas Seminary. Joey blogs at jtcochran.com and you can follow him on Twitter at @joeycochran.

Serving Families in Christ

The women in my family are amazing--especially my mother. She’s one of the most sacrificial women I know. I know everyone says this about their mom. But seriously, my mom is sacrificial and amazing and giving when even I tell her, “Mom…stop," she’ll respond with, “You’ll understand when you have kids!” Well, because of her example and the other women in my family, serving each other is second nature. Nobody groans about watching kids. In fact, grandmothers and mothers beg to watch the kids. Tias will offer without blinking an eye. We serve in many other ways, borrowing money, moving without complaining. This is absolutely a culture thing, and it’s one of my favorite parts of my Hispanic culture. I take great pride in being born into a family where you can say “I’m moving to an apartment on the 3rd floor” and even if everyone lives an hour and a half away, they respond with, “Let us know what day, we’ll make sure you get moved.”

One of the biggest things I learned early on, and a huge reason I fell in love with the Lord, was a draw about having this new family in Christ. Just because I fell in love with Jesus I suddenly had all these new brothers and sisters. I had a new family, how cool is that?

Even though I was coming to church in Austin for a few years before actually moving here, the actual move really was a huge culture shock to me. To be perfectly honest, it’s had it’s toll. When I was living in North Carolina, I was not concerned about this issue because everyone in my church was my age and no one had kids. It was a non-issue. Moving to Austin, and seeing churches go years with having to “deal” with never being able to find childcare is so incredibly heart-breaking to me. It literally fumes me that it’s a problem. I pray for grace with this, too, but it is hard.

People with Children

Just because you have kids, this doesn’t give you an “out” to watching your family’s kids. Here are some things you can do to start fixing this insane issue:

1. Be Persistent. A lot of times, I hear, “Well, I asked so-and-so and they just always seem busy so I didn’t want to ask again.” Stop making assumptions!  Keep asking your small group. This is what they are here for--to be family. Family’s carry each other burdens, serve and love each other when needed, and come alongside each other when needed.

2. Start a Babysitting Club. You and three to four other people can swap date nights and “sleepover” parties for the kids. This will not only encourage date nights, but will also strengthen your little community (family). This time also provides essential opportunities to disciple children by sharing Scripture stories, praying with them, and sharing the gospel with them.

3. Communicate. If you are struggling, confess your feelings to your small group and/or especially your discipleship group. This is a real problem. Ask for prayer. Let those tears shed. People need to see this is a huge problem.

4. Do Something. Another line I hear all the time: “I wish I would have babysat more when I was single.” Again, just because you have kids doesn’t mean you can’t “trade” with your married friends and serve in this way. If your child is in childcare at church, you need to serve in that area. With everyone serving, it allows everyone to enjoy the services and prevents potential “burnout.”

It’s frustrating to hear a bunch of people talk about how big of a problem this is, but no one does anything about it. Everyone is just waiting for everyone else to step up.  Encourage everyone to join you in “stepping up.”

Babysitters aren’t trained in some special course. There aren’t qualifications for serving your family. If we are to be considered “the body of Christ,” what can we assume will happen if parts of it are failing? Right now, childcare is failing and the body’s health is at risk. What does Scripture say about a part of the body rejoicing? 1 Corinthians 12:26 says the rest of the body will rejoice with it. Is the body rejoicing in the childcare realm, or is it suffering? If it’s suffering, what are we to do?

People without Children

1. This Busy Life Doesn’t Belong to You. It’s 2014, and hearing the words, “I’m too busy” is so common and a large reason why this part of the Church is suffering. The idea of getting to church an hour earlier, or giving up a few hours to serve a family sounds like an eternity. Let’s again think about what we know about God. Christ is the definition of sacrifice. The idea of living a life where everything he does is for himself is impossible. If we are to be like Christ and if we are to look different from the world, then this is such an incredible opportunity to be that.

Our life is not ours. It just isn’t. This life belongs to God. We start believing that living a life where we sacrifice literally everything is a terrible thing, and it’s because we don’t believe it’s gratifying or good. The word “sacrifice” doesn’t even seem very nice. But God proved that sacrifice is the most incredible thing. And when we can sit down and examine how much of our time we don’t actually sacrifice, we realize we aren’t that busy. We just worship our busy lives.

Tim Keller said recently we “have an ‘it’s us or them’” attitude when it comes to singles and families. Part of serving families is learning to sacrifice now. Learning to serve now. It’s a rehearsal for the sacrifice many singles and people without children will make when they do have children. You’re sort of “launched” into sacrificing when/if those children enter the picture. Also, if you’re married, don’t forget to invite these people serving you to birthday parties--give them the opportunity to say no. That’s what family does.

2. You don’t need to be “called” to childcare. God did not put it on my heart to serve children. I didn’t get this push from God to serve kids. This is simply ingrained in me because my family was an amazing example and groomed me to believe that if you’re family. . . you bend over backwards to help. Over-spiritualizing something when there is an immediate need in the church is so dangerous. If your church family suddenly all went broke except for you, wouldn’t you bring them food and necessities? It’s an immediate need, and you have the resources, so it’s common sense.

Seeing an immediate need and ignoring it because “you just don’t want to” should be examined. If your thoughts are, “those kids are too hyper for me” or “I won’t be good at it” then you should either talk to the parents about it, or examine whether or not this can change. Immediate needs need to be met immediately. As I said before–we are the body. You don’t get called to save a drowning member. You jump in and you help them.

3. Kids are insane. You are capable of getting over it for a few hours. As disobedient, crazy, hyper, annoying, or selfish they can be–Jesus still says, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3). We can go on about why he said that, but he constantly shows us how much he loves children (Mk. 10:13-16). If you don’t have your own, this is more reason you can give up a few hours to bless a family. Because as crazy as they are–it’s an opportunity to pray for the child and the family. And an opportunity to praise God for the life he gave you.

4. Stop your judgement. It saddens me when someone won’t watch someone’s kids because they don’t agree with the parenting style. I personally wouldn’t give my child cow’s milk and I would let them experience McDonalds, but I certainly will never use that as an excuse not to serve a family if the parent raises their child in a way I think I wouldn’t raise my kid. Every time I’d cry to my mom and dad about how it wasn’t fair they wouldn’t let me do something and they’d respond with, “You’ll understand when you’re our age.” I say the same to you. You’ll understand when you have kids.

Jesus Sacrifices and Serves

We have to remind ourselves that the one human to ever walk the earth that had a legit reason to not serve was Jesus. He was God. It's impossible to think about, but he served even when he had the greatest excuses. Paul says, “Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant” (Phil. 2:6-7). Serving is good. Jesus washed some guys feet (feet were probably more gross back then...yuck, you guys) and good things came from that (John 13:1-20). Imagine the good that comes from serving your family by giving them a night to focus on other good stuff--like their marriage.

I’m praying for a future where families aren’t “tied down” because they don’t want to move away from parents and grandparents for fear of never having childcare.

I’m praying for a future when you only have to serve the kids area at church on Sundays like twice a year because all of the parents of the kids in childcare serve, and everyone else is willing.

I’m praying for a future when Christians stop using the words “brothers and sisters” loosely and start realizing that’s what we actually are in Christ. I will continue to pray that the Church can realize that “babysitting” and “childcare” is more than just watching kids. There’s a lot of incredible opportunities to disciple there.

We pray that God would make disciples of us, and this is such a great chance to do just that. By doing this for each other--all of us--we open doors to get into each others lives. We aren’t just serving--we are doing life together. We don’t have to look at each other like babysitters. Like volunteers. We are given freedom in Christ to look at each other like brothers and sisters. And if that’s true--then there are a whole lot of nieces and nephews we are free to love.

—

Jessica Souza is currently the CFO of Shop With Care,  manages Social Media for Texas Style Council, and is directing a movie. To find out what else she's up to, follow her on Twitter: @SpookyJess.

The Wellspring of Love

One of the greatest sources of joy in my life is parenting my three young children. It is also one the greatest sources of chaos in my life as well. Yet, I find I can handle the messes, the sleepless nights, and even the 50,000 meals I’ll prepare for them, but what I can’t handle is the bickering. The constant picking. The small arguments over who had what first and who took apart whose Legos and why must brothers be so annoying. (I am seriously thinking about forgoing traditional baby gifts from now on. Instead I’m going to start giving something more eminently suited to parenting—a black and white striped jersey and a whistle.) In the midst of the chaos, I often find myself yelling at the top of my lungs, “Will you all just stop it?!?! Why can you just be KIND to each other?”

Legalistic Love

During one such meltdown, I had an epiphany. Here I was demanding that my children love like God loves without directing them to Him as the source of that love. And yet, the only way my children—those little image bearers themselves—will ever be able to love one another properly is as they encounter and bask in God’s love for them first. In a twisted irony, my call for them to love had morphed into legalism because I had presented it apart from the source of love.

Most of the time we associate legalism with strict adherence to a specific set of rules, but legalism is not simply choosing the letter of the law over the spirit. Legalism is any attempt to model God’s attributes apart from a relationship with Him. Legalism is trying is to be an image bearer without relying on the Image.

When we attempt to “love” apart from God, our love will only be as lasting as the current situation or our own ability to sustain it. This is why forced tolerance, political correctness, and the “just be kind” approach often feel so weak and at times, so artificial. These approaches are artificial because they are not rooted in imago dei relationship. It’s like we’re playing dress-up in our mother’s heels and pearls—clumping down the hallway, mimicking her behavior but never truly embodying it.

Christ Changes How We Love

In order to make us the fully faceted people we were meant to be, Christ must change what and how we love.  He must reshape and reorder our loves to their proper places. And to do that, He must first hold the central place in our affection.

Jesus taught that the greatest commandment is to love God supremely and that the second greatest is to love our neighbor as ourselves. Because God is supreme, we must desire Him and His approval above anything else; we must position Him as the source of our affections and acceptance; and when we do, as His image bearers, we will naturally reflect His perfect love. This is why the Scripture speaks of our new identity in terms of having a “new heart.” When Christ has first place, when we are consumed with His love, we will naturally love like He does.

And yet, unlike some believe, loving God supremely does not mean that we don’t love other things; instead it means that we love other things the way that God intends for them to be loved. This is why the second commandment follows on the heels of the first. You can only love our neighbor properly—you can only love him or her as God does—if you find your source and definition of love from God Himself. In this sense, loving your neighbor actually flows out of loving God and cannot happen in the fullness that God intends apart from Him.

But when we are transformed by intimate daily dependence on the Creator’s love, when He becomes the source, not simply the model, of the love we extend to each other, we will have vast reservoirs of love welling up inside us, overflowing for all. So the way that we come into full personhood, the way that we love as we were intended to love, is not simply to mimic God’s love, but to allow it to transform us from the inside out. And then, only then, will people know we are His disciples. They will know we belong to Him because our identity will be consumed by His; they will know we belong to Him because we will love like He loves.

—

Hannah Anderson lives in the hauntingly beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. She spends her days working beside her husband in rural ministry, caring for their three young children, and scratching out odd moments to write. In those in-between moments, she contributes to a variety of Christian publications and is the author of Made for More: An Invitation to Live in God's Image (Moody, 2014). You can connect with her at her blog Sometimes a Light and on Twitter @sometimesalight.

(Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt adapted from Made for More: An Invitation to Live in God's Image by Hannah Anderson available from Moody, 2014. It appears here with the permission of the author and publisher.)

Catechisms for Kingdom Warfare

Today, we are at war. Not with flesh and blood, but in soul. Our heart, soul, mind, and strength are in daily conflicts with the Cosmic Powers. How do you fight? The Apostle Paul wants us to be catechized. We need a catechism—a gospel-driven catechism of victory.

Dust off Your Catechisms

Catechizing believers, teaching a set list of questions and answers, is a long-rooted practice of the Bride of Christ. It's one that seems to be waning, if not already gone. It's definitely dusty, but we can recover it. Catechism is a powerful, helpful, biblical method of teaching others—and yourself.

How ultra-helpful are the Westminster and Heidelberg versions? The Westminster Catechism starts by asking:

Question 1: What is the chief end of man?

Answer: Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

Question 4: What is God?

Answer: God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.

The Heidelberg Catechism’s first question and answer address the entirety of life and death.

Question 1: What is thy only comfort in life and death?

Answer: That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ; who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.

Preaching the Gospel to Our Hearts

We need to become experts in the art of preaching the gospel to ourselves. One of the greatest thinkers and pastors of the past 100 years was Martyn Lloyd-Jones, referred to by many as “The Doctor.” He rightly diagnosed why so many Christians flounder in their daily lives and experiences with God. The Doctor said, "Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?" How right on was he? A defeated, depressed, downtrodden, exasperated, exhausted, joyless, burnt-out Christianity is not Christianity.

We need to lay hold of the cross and remember our new life in Christ. We need to preach the gospel to ourselves. We need to catechize ourselves. Catechisms are a turnkey help in the practice of preaching to yourself.

Catechism ought to be in our spiritual discipline gun cabinet.

The long tested spiritual disciplines need a freshening in our perspectives. What can often be seen as a quiet and cute time around a cup of coffee, Moleskine, ESV Study Bible, assorted pens and highlighters—maybe some instrumental music—is nothing short of Kingdom warfare. We don't read the Bible to get a pick-me-up; we read to grow in the knowledge of the holy—yes, and amen!—and we take up the spiritual disciplines as weaponry against the ancient Reptile and his hobgoblins. “For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ”(2 Corinthians 10:4–5 ESV). The last thing Satan wants of the Church is to obey Jesus, glorify Jesus, honor Jesus, spread the fame of Jesus—and that should be our first thing, the chief aim of all spiritual disciplines.

Attack With Gospel Truth

When the hiss of accusation, doubt, and fiery arrows draw near, Paul walks us through a catechism of victory in Romans 8:31-39; and if we resist the devil, and draw near to God, the snake will bolt (James 4:7-8). As you read Romans 8:31-39, look for the question marks.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Paul sets up seven questions (in ten verses!) and gives the answers—what is he doing? He is catechizing us. Romans 8:31-39 may be one of the first Christian catechisms. There seems to be four main questions:

Question: Why should I not doubt God's love and care for me? (vv. 31-32)

Answer: If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

Question: How come charges will not stand against me? (v. 33)

Answer: It is God who justifies.

Question: Can I ever be condemned? (v. 34)

Answer: Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

Question: Can anything separate me from the love of Christ? Will I ever be unloved by God? (vv. 37-39)

Answer: No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Glory to God!

It All Comes Back to The Gospel

The questions are helpful, but the weapon is the answer. What weapon does Paul give when we are wondering if we'll be condemned? Read your Bible more? Pray harder? No way. He gives gospel truth. Stand-alone spiritual disciplines are not an encouragement; they are a vehicle, meant to help us draw near to God (James 4:8). Spiritual disciplines alone aren't the answer to a struggling heart; they take us to the answer. And each question is answered with gospel glories.

Question: Why should I not doubt God's love and care for me?

Answer: v. 32, He gave us his Son! (Gospel)

Question: How come charges will not stand against me?

Answer: v. 33, It is God who justifies us! How? The Cross & Resurrection (Romans 4:25). (More gospel)

Question: Can I be condemned?

Answer: v. 34, Never! Jesus died for you, is alive for you, is at the Father's right hand for you, and interceding for you. (Yep, more gospel!)

Question: Can anything separate me from the love of Christ?

Answer: vv. 37-39, No! You are a mega-conqueror through Christ. You have victory in him & nothing can separate from him. (And again, more gospel!)

Gospel. Gospel. Gospel. Gospel.

It always comes back to God's love; it's lauded four times in the passage (vv. 35, 37, 39). Always come back to his love. And God's love is made plain and clear in the gospel.

“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:6-8)

God wants you to know and feel his love. While else frame every answer with it?  You can never feel too loved by God.

Are you sure of his love (v.38)? That's the point of the catechism, to be sure. Preach to yourself the immeasurable, matchless bounty of God's love for you.

Responsive Reading

Here is responsive reading based off of Romans 8:31-39, that could assist you catechizing yourself with the gospel.

I struggle to believe God's love and care for me. Is there hope?

God is for me. No one can stand against God’s plan for me. He didn't spare his Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

Is it true that God won't cast me aside? I've done some bad things; I'll never be good enough.

No one can condemn me, for Jesus died in my place—more than that, He is alive—and he reigns over my life, and is interceding for me.

My life is heavy; things aren't going as I planned. I thought God loved me?

Nothing can separate me from God's love. Trouble, distress, persecution, poverty, danger, and death cannot remove me from God's grace. In all these things, I am more than a conqueror through him who loved me.

Satan prowls around me. I've sinned too much. I've sinned too big. I'm nervous about my future.

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus my Lord.

I confess these truths, clinging to Jesus—I believe and live again.

Christ be praised.

—

J.A. Medders is the Lead Pastor of Redeemer Church in Tomball, TX. He and Natalie have two kids, Ivy and Oliver. Jeff digs caffeinated drinks, books, and the Triune God. He blogs at www.jamedders.com and tweets from @mrmedders. Jeff's first book, Gospel-Formed: Living a Grace-Addicted, Truth-Filled, Jesus-Exalting Life, is set to release this November from Kregel.

Liberating Our Teens from Sexual Lies

(Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from Preparing Your Teens for College by Alex Chediak available from Tyndale House Publishers, 2014. It appears here with the permission of the author and publisher. For more information and a lengthier excerpt, visit Alex’s site.)

A Biblical Understanding of Sex

Our teens need to have a biblical understanding of sex in order to navigate the challenges that await them in college. For starters, let’s define the term, not on an anatomical level but at a foundational level. Here’s how pastor and author Tim Keller puts it:

Sex is perhaps the most powerful God-created way to help you give your entire self to another human being. Sex is God’s appointed way for two people to reciprocally say to one another, “I belong completely, permanently, and exclusively to you.”¹

And that’s true. But Keller (and the Bible) would go a step further. Sex is a physical picture of a spiritual reality: God wants to dwell among and deeply know his people. God invented sex not just to propagate the human race and to give us enjoyment but to be a picture of the salvation story—Jesus Christ laying down his life for us (his bride) to bring us back to God (see Ephesians 5:25-27; 1 Peter 3:18). Gerald Hiestand and Jay Thomas say it well:

God created sex to serve as a living portrait of the life-changing spiritual union that believers have with God through Christ. . . . God created the physical oneness of sex to serve as a visible image, or type, of the spiritual union that exists between Christ and the church.²

At stake in our sexuality is nothing less than our representation of Jesus Christ’s relationship with those who follow him.

Maybe you’re saying, “This all sounds great for an adult Sunday school class, but is it really practical to explain this to our teens?” While I wouldn’t expect the same level of interest from a 12- or 13-year-old as from a 17- or 18-year-old, I do believe teens need a big-picture perspective on what sexual intimacy represents if they’re going to win the battle for purity in college and throughout their adult lives. And a biblical understanding of sex is the best antidote to the culture’s sexual lies. Our culture believes that sex is all about me. My desires. My satisfaction. It’s about using others, not serving them. But the Bible tells us that sex is all about God and his glorious work in bringing us into relationship with him. In the context of marriage, sex is about giving ourselves to serve our spouse (see 1 Corinthians 7:3-5).

A BIBLICAL MOTIVATION FOR PURITY

A biblical understanding of sex leads to a biblical motivation for abstaining until marriage. I fear that sometimes we motivate teens to sexual purity in small, even worldly ways, rather than in big, biblical ways. I have friends who grew up in Bible-believing churches that faithfully preached chastity, but the rationale was “Hey, you wouldn’t want to get pregnant, or get someone pregnant, or contract a sexually transmitted disease (STD). And watch out for those condoms! They’re not as effective as your health teacher says they are.”

The problem is it’s assumed that teens know that sex before marriage is a sin and little to no explanation is given as to why it’s a sin. Of course, we should want our teens to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancies and STDs, but neither of these is an explicitly Christian goal. You don’t have to believe the Bible to want to avoid those things. Moreover, this argument doesn’t confront the cultural lie that sex is all about self.

If our teens know something about how human sexuality is meant to represent the permanent, spiritual union between Jesus Christ and his bride, it gives meaning and motivation to the prohibition on sex outside of marriage. Sexual intimacy in any context besides marriage dishonors God by telling a lie about how Jesus Christ relates to his people. And it massively disrupts our relationship with God (see 1 Corinthians 6:12-20). In contrast, the fear of the Lord teaches us to hate all evil (see Proverbs 8:13), to abstain from sexual immorality (see 1 Thessalonians 4:3-7), and to be holy because God is holy (see 1 Peter 1:13-16).

Once our teens understand what sex is, what it represents, and why it must be reserved for marriage, they’ll be better able to understand that there is a whole range of behaviors that are sexual in nature and that therefore must all be reserved for marriage. I fear it’s too easy for those with small, worldly motives for “staying pure” to cut corners, focusing on how close they can get to the edge without falling off. For example, ministry leaders in Christian college settings will confirm that a significant number of professing Christian students (like their non-Christian counterparts) do not consider oral sex to be sex. Why not? Because it doesn’t fit their overly narrow definition of “sex.”

But if they had a more comprehensive understanding—one rooted in the perspective summarized above—they would see that of course oral sex is sex. It’s the giving of oneself to another person in an incredibly intimate way. Like-wise, a lot of other physical acts would fall into this category.

Which leads us to the age-old question Christian teens and singles ask: How far is too far before marriage?

AN OBJECTIVE STANDARD FOR PURITY

But your teen might ask, “Isn’t that legalism?" We should anticipate this response. Many Christian teens will recognize that “getting physical” with someone they don’t really know is pure lust and clearly wrong. If they struggle at this point, remind them of 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, the forgiveness available in Christ, and that their past behavior need not determine their future. For others, the clear line of purity gets fuzzy when they develop a mutual attraction. Maybe they agree to be “exclusive,” to be boyfriend and girlfriend. They begin to see this other person as “special”—more than a friend but less than a spouse. So things get a bit physical (i.e., sexual), but they tell themselves, It’s not like we’re having sex, Things aren’t getting out of hand, and We know when we need to stop. And they tell others, “Don’t judge us—you don’t understand.” (As if we never lived through those years.)

Teach your teens what’s wrong with this logic before they’re in the throes of temptation and every ounce of their being wants to believe they have the right to decide “how far is too far.” The idea that Christians are allowed to set their own sexual standards, as long as they accomplish the goal of avoiding intercourse, is dangerous and misleading. . . .

This is not legalism. It liberates our teens from being captive to their own subjective standards, which can be profoundly flawed, especially in the heat of the moment. And we can really help them as parents, because if you’re married, I’d imagine that the boundaries of propriety toward other women or men are pretty clear for you. If our teens are to relate to young men and women “in all purity” (1 Timothy 5:2), they need to have this same clarity.

—

Alex Chediak is an author, speaker, and professor of engineering and physics at California Baptist University. Alex has been involved in mentoring students for many years. He has published numerous articles in Boundless (Focus on the Family), Trak (God’s World News), and Christian College Guide (Christianity Today). He is the bestselling author of Thriving at College (Tyndale House, 2011). Alex and his wife, Marni, live with their three children in Riverside, California. Visit Alex’s site or follow him on Twitter: @Chediak.

^{1. Timothy Keller with Kathy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage (New York: Dutton, 2011), 223-224.↩ 2. Gerald Hiestand and Jay Thomas, Sex, Dating, and Relationships (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 18..↩}

Walking Through the Flood

I went and saw Darren Aronofsky’s Noah during the opening weekend with my wife. The point of this article isn’t to review the movie. You can find some helpful reviews from Greg Thornbury, Joe Carter, Brian Mattson, and Kevin McLenithan at CaPC (those will give the sweep of evangelical responses). As they mention, there were positive and negative points about the movie, but the one area where I think Aronofsky pushes into the narrative well is right as the flood starts and the Ark is being tossed about by the wind and the waves. During this scene, you can hear the cries of people mixed with the roar of the waters. You can hardly distinguish the two. That realization that all other humans were being killed by the deluge weighed heavily on Noah and his family. So often when we teach our children about the Flood we do so without letting the weight of the narrative sink in. The deluge was a judgment because “the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and every intention of the thoughts if his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5) and “the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and filled with violence” (6:11). God commands Noah to build an ark and to take animals and his family on the ark to preserve life. The waters come; the waves billow; the floods rise. The Spirit says, “And all flesh died. . . . Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died” (7:21-22). Those are sobering verses.

How do we normally treat the narrative integrity of this story? Just as poorly as Aronofsky does in some points in his movie. We white wash the grief that should press down in our hearts with cutesy flannel graphs of smiling animals and rainbows. We commercialize God’s judgement of the entire world by decorating our baby’s rooms with a happy-go-lucky Noah and family. Can you imagine the inner turmoil and possible guilt Noah might have felt as his family survived this catastrophic flood?

Walking Through the Flood

Christians must sojourn through the deluge. We must submerge ourselves in the Word of God--especially those difficult stories. We must do this as a family. Otherwise, what we are left with is the neutered children stories, flannel graphs, and children decor available at most Christian retailers today--not the actual stories of the Bible.

It’s not just Noah either. We do this with most of the Bible’s stories. Part of the beauty of the Bible is the tension it creates as the gospel narrative unfolds. It’s filled with judgement, death, incest, lies, deceit, homosexuality, fornication, murder, rape, and disobedience. These sinful elements (sin described with straightforward honesty, but without crudeness) create movement. They drive us forward. They keep us asking, “Why?” They keep us looking for Someone who can redeem this world and us.

Reading through these stories with our family provides us the opportunity to have difficult discussions with our children and spouses. It’s a critical part of spiritual maturity. Maturity in Christ cannot be attained without wrestling with the tough questions that the Scripture raises. Multiplication of disciples (Matt. 28:18-20) cannot occur without this collective wrestling. So how can we teach others to obey all the words of the Lord, if we have failed to wrestle with them as a family?

The Darkness Makes Way for the Light

Also, all the sinful elements in Scripture are things that will undoubtedly confront our families--regardless if we introduce them to our children or spouses. Insulation isn’t an option. Is there a better way to introduce difficult topics like death, rape, murder, adultery than in the river of the gospel story? Is there a better way to tackle difficult social issues like abortion, rebellion, or homosexuality than through the sweep of Scripture? A story where these elements are not praised or perverted into something other than they are. A story where these elements drive us towards our need for a Savior.

That doesn’t mean we open our Bibles directly to Judges 19 with our toddlers, but it does mean within the time we have with our family we cover Scripture from front to back. My children are young still, but the best conversation I’ve had with my oldest daughter Claire happened because we were reading through the Passion narrative in Matthew. Claire was so conflicted by the death of Jesus. She felt it was unfair that he had to die. We spent at least the next two hours going back and forth about the significance of the pivotal plot points in the gospel narrative. The conversation went from Jesus died for sinners to “Daddy are you going to die?” to “Will I die daddy?” We discussed the Heidelberg Catechism question and answer one. I encouraged her that for those who believe the promises of God, “Jesus is our only hope in life and death.” I could see the wheels turning and she by the end of our discussion she told me, “Daddy, I believe the promises of God.” I ended with a prayer for God to be faithful to his promises for our family and that he would grow Claire’s faith. These kind of frank conversations only occur when we sojourn together with our families through the deluge.

So don’t be afraid of Bible stories that are difficult. Sometimes it may be ok to just say, “I don’t know why” when our children ask difficult questions. Tell them you’ve struggled with the same questions. Tell them you will pray and ask God for answers as well. Don’t relieve tension in the Scriptures that God inspired. One thing we can be sure of these things--he put many of these stories in Scripture so he can disciple us and we can disciple our families. He put them there to contrast the bad news (that sin and evil runs through each of our hearts) with the good news (the Redeemer has come and is offering a covenant of peace made in his blood). Sojourn through the deluge together.

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Mathew B. Sims is the Editor-in-Chief at Exercise.com and has authored, edited, and contributed to several books including A Household Gospel, We Believe: Creeds, Confessions, & Catechisms for Worship, A Guide for Advent, Make, Mature, Multiply, and A Guide for Holy Week. Mathew, LeAnn (his wife), and his daughters Claire, Maddy, and Adele live in Taylors, SC at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains with their Airdale Terrier. They attend Downtown Presbyterian Church (PCA). Visit MathewBryanSims.com!

A Glorious Expedition

We as men are all called to lead our wives (Eph. 5:25-27), which sounds like a glorious expedition. However, no one knows how to do it practically. Many men want to lead their wives better, but have trouble knowing how to do so. Some men try to preach at their wives (which doesn’t work). Others try to make their homes a mini-seminary (which doesn’t work). Others start reading the Bible and then get frustrated and just give up (which doesn’t work). Other men are discouraged because they don’t feel as though they are godly enough to lead (which doesn’t work). I personally wanted to write this article, not because I’m a good leader in my home, but because I’m not a great leader. I’ve had to talk to men, read, pray, and learn by trial and error on how to lead my wife and I’m still not great at it.

Therefore, I wanted to put together a practical list for leading our wives better on this glorious expedition. Now, some of these tips will work better for some couples than others so feel free to find what works for you and to mix and match. This will be a process of trial and error, but it is worth the struggle to grow spiritually.

1. Lead your wife with love. The most important thing when it comes to guiding your wife is how you act toward her and how you show your love for the Lord (1 Pt. 3:7). Actions speak louder than words. If you are loving, tender, selfless, sacrificial, joyous, and deeply love Jesus, this will have the greatest impact on your family of anything that you could do. Modeling Jesus in your own life will naturally guide your wife. Make sure you make Jesus look beautiful. If you make him look beautiful then your wife will naturally grow in her affections for him. Conversely, if you don’t have personal joy in the Lord then your wife will find it harder to grow in her own personal walk with him as well.

2. Go after your wife’s heart. Many men just do tasks or serve their wife by emptying the dryer (which is good, by the way) but you have to find out who your wife really is and find out how to make her feel loved internally. Going after your wife’s heart instead of just doing tasks is key. Asking questions about her and how she is doing spiritually can be a good way to do this. Don’t just be generic (i.e. “how are you”) but more specific (i.e. “what makes you love Jesus this week?”) in your questions. And be ready to listen.

3. Pray with your wife. This can be tough for many people because it becomes a “task.” One of the things you can do is pray in bed before you go to sleep. The prayer doesn’t have to be long or elaborate and you can both be laying down and just hold hands and pray. An ineloquent prayer is better than no prayer at all. Your relationship with your wife is so important that God mentions that your prayers may be hindered if one doesn’t gently honor their wife (1 Pt. 3:7).

4. Read scripture together (Deut. 6:7). Now, this often turns into a “preaching moment” for most men so instead of trying to be your wife’s professor, just read a chapter of scripture out loud before you go to bed. She can read the next chapter tomorrow night and you can alternate. You don’t have to “teach” the passage, you can just read it and then go to bed. Of course, you are always free to talk about it with each other if you would like.

5. Read a book together. Read a book together or read two separate books and set up a coffee date, once a week, to sit down and talk about what you are learning and what the Lord is revealing to you in your reading.

6. Listen to sermons, lessons, or studies together. Once a week it may be wise to listen to a sermon, lecture, or lesson together. Sermons online or a series (like Tommy Nelson’s “Song of Solomon”) are wonderful to listen to together in your marriage.

7. Worship with you family. Perhaps once a week, or once a month, you can plug in your iPod to some speakers and play some worship songs. Or make your car rides together a time to worship in song. Allow your family to sing, worship, and allow your kids to dance. This not only is a great way to lead your family in worship, but I have found it is one of the most helpful things you can do to grow your wife in the Lord. Worshipping gets our eyes on Christ and allows him to minister to us. We are more apt to love him only after we realize how much he loves us.

The good news is that Jesus cares more for your wife than you do. He also cares more for your marriage than you do. These steps are not a "silver bullet" or a task list to merely check off. The hope in all this is that you would look to the mercy of Christ and depend on him so that he might grow you both. Marriage is a mini picture of the gospel so be encouraged in the fact that Jesus will do all the work, our part is just to be faithful.

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Zach Lee is Associate Home Groups Minister at The Village Church and is married to Katy.  Follow him on Twitter: @zacharytlee.

Converging Marriage and Mission

DIVERGING STREAMS?

Many married people reading this are well versed in two streams of Christian thought: the first stream is that we are God’s people sent into God’s world to carry out God’s mission. From Abraham on, God sends his people into the world–not to be enveloped by the world, but to live–as St. Augustine put it–as the “city of God,” living among the “city of Man” and seeking its good. The other stream is that marriage is the best reflection of the Trinity, and of God’s love for and pursuit of his Bride. Orthodox theology for the past 2000 years has affirmed Paul’s words in Ephesians 5, that the blessed relationship between a husband and wife is the clearest picture of “the mystery” of “Christ and his church.” We’ve heard both those streams; we know both principles; we even believe and strive to live out those truths.

The problem is we often hear, know, believe, and live those streams separately from each other, while God designed them to be one strong, flowing, unified river. We try to live as missionaries and as couples as two distinct compartments of life. As Paul Tripp has said: “But they’re not naturally divided. That’s why you don’t have a huge discussion in the New Testament of the tension between ministry and family. It’s just not there. We have set that up, because we naturally look at these two things as separate dimensions.” Here’s the truth for every Christian couple: marriage is the clearest picture of the gospel in the world today, and your marriage is one of the best forms of evangelism in the world today. We can no longer keep our marriage and our mission in separate, parallel streams–they must converge.

How can God use our marriage for his mission? We can learn much from the Bible’s brief glimpses of one couple, Aquila and Priscilla, in Acts 18.

After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he went to see them, and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade. Acts 18:1-3

GOD’S MISSION THROUGH YOUR IDENTITY

Aquila and Priscilla were not pastors and didn’t have seminary degrees. They made tents for a living, working a culturally-normative profession. Yet they saw themselves as ministers of the gospel by opening their lives to Paul. We see at the end of 1 Corinthians that they hosted the local church in their home. Later in Acts 18 they go with Paul on mission for the gospel. In some circles today, Christians refer to “tent-making” as the honorable use of a “secular” job for ministry. For this couple, tent-making carried no great honor; it was simply their job, and a means of God’s provisions, as they lived their lives for the gospel. They were a married couple with a normal life, who used their marriage and life for God’s ministry. Whoever you are, and regardless of your job, city, or profession–or marital status–you are a minister of the gospel.

The God who saved you “by grace through faith” now has “good works, prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:8-10). “God. . . through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:18). If you're married, you're probably busy. Whether you’re paid by a church or by Starbucks, FedEx, an ISD, or the government, and whether we’ve been married one week or fifty years, and whether you have ten kids running around the home or are empty-nesters, and whether you deal with the normal messiness of life or struggle with deeper issues, you’re still (primarily) God’s people sent on God’s mission to God’s world. That’s your identity in Christ: you’re a minister of his gospel.

GOD’S MISSION THROUGH YOUR HOSPITALITY

As part of Aquila and Priscilla’s gospel ministry, they opened their home to the Apostle Paul. He didn’t just crash on their couch for a few nights, but moved in with them. Their home was also the meeting place for the local church. If you look at the normative life of the early church in Acts 2, you know that folks didn’t just wander into their home at 10am on a Sunday, stay for an hour, then go to Chili’s. Instead, “day by day, [they attended] the temple together and [broke] bread in their homes” (Acts 2). The church was likely in Aquila and Priscilla’s home a lot.

There’s an old episode of Everybody Loves Raymond in which Ray’s parents purchase a new couch, and won’t remove the plastic wrap for fear of getting it dirty–that’s a great picture of how many of us view our homes. Today we often view our homes as a “refuge” or “retreat” from the difficult world “out there.” That thinking misses part of the point: our homes, like everything God gives us, are gifts to steward for the sake of God's mission. Aquila and Priscilla had a home, and used that home as a generous blessing to others.

Aquila and Priscilla lived as God’s ministers, and in doing so, they used their home as a ministry. In the familial mess of opening your home, doors open for deep conversations. In denying the comfort and convenience a home can provide, others are blessed and cared for.

GOD’S MISSION THROUGH YOUR DECISIONS

Put yourself in Aquila and Priscilla’s shoes. You’re new to town, and you're only there because you got kicked out of your last town. If the local church needs a place to meet, would you volunteer your home? Paul shows up and asks to live with you. While your first impression today might be excitement: “The most famous Christian in the world, the guy who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament, the greatest missionary of all time, wants to live with ME?!” We must see the other side too. Paul was also one of the most persecuted, most wanted, most despised persons of his day. “Inviting him in” was a massive danger to yourself!

When we think of “hospitality,” we often mistake it for what the Bible calls “fellowship.” At times it’s easy–or at least, easier–to open your home to other followers of Jesus. But true, biblical hospitality is opening your home to strangers, caring for the hurting and the least. Biblical hospitality means blessing folks who could never bless you back. It is initiating with others and loving people because God first initiated and loved us.

The rubber meets the road in marriage and ministry through the decisions you make each day. Those decisions display what you and your spouse value, love, pursue, and fear. Your decisions display what you and your spouse worship. And those you’re ministering to will watch your marriage and learn from it. How you use your home as a couple is one of those daily decisions.

GOD’S MISSION THROUGH YOUR STEWARDSHIP

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:9: “if in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” If Jesus hasn’t risen, and there’s no hope for the future, then we should be more pitied than anyone in the world. The reason our lives should invite pity from people who don’t know Jesus is that our lives should look strange, illogical, and crazy. People should think we’ve lost our minds. Is that true of the decisions you and your spouse make? What values and priorities do your neighbors see in your marriage? What goals and pursuits does the world around you see in your life?

If God is using our marriages for his mission, it looks completely illogical. For example you might be able to afford the best private school in town, yet send your kids to the less-esteemed, local public one because your family places obedience in mission above an educational reputation. It makes no sense to deny a higher paying job, for one with better hours–but you pursue mission by dwelling with your family and mission field longer. Might we give up a club, hobby, organization, Xbox, or even one of our many Bible Studies, to free up time, money, and energy for those God sent us to? Might we even “cold-call” our neighbors and invite them over for dinner? Would we let them see our imperfections, and bless them without expecting a return? This is the call to display the weird life of gospel implications in marriage.

The key to each of these–living as a minister, opening your home and marriage, and living a counter-cultural lifestyle–is seeing yourself as a steward of your life, possessions, and even family, rather than an owner. Here’s what Aquila and Priscilla understood: everything we have is a gift from God. Everything we have is his; everything is given to us to use and cultivate and use on his behalf. We are the servants in Matthew 25, and one day our Master will look at all he entrusted us with. Will our master be pleased or disappointed in our stewardship?

GOD’S MISSION THROUGH YOUR PROCLAMATION

Our marriages, like everything else God gives us, are gifts from God to steward well for his purposes. Do we take his gift and make it about ourselves? Do we trade his purpose and mission for our selfishness and safety? Do we take marriage–the best display of the gospel to the world–and hide it away rather than using it to proclaim the glory, grace, and goodness of God?

Aquila and Priscilla were so sold out on God’s mission that they later moved to Ephesus with Paul. They stayed there when Paul continued on, and as a “husband-wife team,” directed their ministry into a young convert named Apollos (Acts 18:18-26). The scriptures that speak to this point in history show that that, as a couple, Aquila and Priscilla “discipled” this young man for a season just as they had opened their lives to Paul and the church at Corinth. And like Paul, God used Apollos to produce great fruit and bring himself great glory through the known world.

A CONVERGENCE FOR SAKE OF THE GOSPEL

By their actions, decisions, lifestyle, and their words, Aquila and Priscilla were a couple who proclaimed the gospel. What would your city be like if it was filled with couples devoting their lives and marriages to helping others understand the gospel of Jesus? What would your church be like if it was filled with families who opened their homes to life-on-life discipleship? What would it look like to see our marriages as gifts from God, for the sake of his mission, rather than our own selfish desires?

It is difficult. It battles everything in us that wants comfort, convenience, privacy, and silence. If we deny ourselves for his mission, we should be pitied--if Jesus didn’t raise from the dead. But he did! And in doing so, he transforms both our marriages and our mission; he gives us the only reason for living this way; he becomes the only reason for “intentionally illogical” decisions. In Jesus’ death, resurrection, and call on our lives, his mission and our marriages converge into a story that’s bigger than our own–the writing of which took a greater sacrifice than we’ll ever be asked to give.

In our marriages, we have the opportunity to put that story on display every day. Will we continue to live as married people, who separately, occasionally in our busyness, pursue ministry? Or will the gospel transform our time, priorities, and relationship, and unite those diverging streams into one, as we live out our new identity and converge God’s mission and our marriages?

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Special thanks to Ross Appleton for the foundational concept this article is built on.

Ben Connelly, his wife Jess, and their daughters Charlotte and Maggie live in Fort Worth, TX. He started and now co-pastors The City Church, part of the Acts29 network and Soma family of churches. Ben is also co-author of A Field Guide for Everyday Mission (Moody Publishers, 2014). With degrees from Baylor University and Dallas Theological Seminary, Ben teaches public speaking at TCU, writes for various publications, trains folks across the country, and blogs in spurts at benconnelly.net. Twitter: @connellyben. For related resources, including a FREE eBook by Ben Connelly & Bob Roberts Jr, visit everydaymission.net

6 Ways to Make Christ Central at Home

Family is, rightfully, one of the most emphasized points in the modern church. Seminars, parenting videos, books, sermon series, and a litany of parachurch ministries focus on the family. While these resources are often good, I believe a vital element has been missing in our approach to parenting. I often ask my students if they remember their church hosting family oriented events such as marriage retreats and sermon series. Virtually everyone recalls such a focus. Then I ask, “How many of you recall an emphasis in these events or resources on evangelizing your children or raising them to become Great Commission Christians?” Very few recall such an emphasis.

Who Should Evangelize Our Children?

Nothing matters more to Christian parents than that their children become passionate followers of Christ. Yet, we hardly ever talk about that in the church. And raising children with a focus on the Great Commission seems about as common as a lemonade stand in the Sahara Desert. I believe this stems, in part, from the institutionalism in our churches, as if presenting Christ to our children was the job of "the church" rather than the parents. Perhaps we also (falsely) assume parents are evangelizing their kids.

Being a parent must be the most exciting, frightening, inspiring, upsetting, amazing, routine, joyful and, at times, sorrowful experience in life. I spend a lot of time with youth. Many of them do not have a close relationship with their parents. Many rarely see a family that loves one another. Marriages end in divorce, with fatherless children, and mothers who struggle to get by. How can we avoid this path? How can we cultivate a Christ-centered home?

Christ-centered Home

In Deuteronomy 6, Moses addresses parents and other adults saying: “Listen, Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One. Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” Jesus called this the Greatest Commandment. Surely it should be central in any Christian home!

In your decisions as a family, do you seek first to listen to God? Does your family put following what God says above all else? If so, does a passion for the lost have a central part in your home? Sometimes we miss the centrality of loving God above all when we tell our children to get a good education, good job, but fail to place as much emphasis on hearing and loving God. If God really is this lovely, worthy of our affection and devotion, then do we inspire our children to share the good news about Him, to know and enjoy Him through Jesus?

We bought our current home with these things in mind. We picked a home that was: 1) In a neighborhood of folks not actively churched (and we have great neighbors!) 2) Designed to help us focus on being together: large great room with TV, computer all there. Growing up, our children spent very little time in their rooms because we shared a home, not just a house. Parents who model love for God and family, use their years together to not only love one another but also welcome in the lost. A Christ-centered home is an evangelistic home.

How to Make Christ Central at Home

Deuteronomy 6:6-9 provides a great outline for parenting:

”These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

The notion that spiritual training is primarily the job of the church and, in particular, teens the responsibility of a student pastor, is NOT taught in the Bible. Deuteronomy 6 puts the responsibility for the spiritual training of a child squarely on the shoulders of parents. We are to instruct them, literally “sharpen the knife,” and live truth before them. What does this look like? While it certainly involves active participation in a gospel-centered church, it also includes imparting a longing for the salvation of the neighbors and the nations.

Allow me to breakdown the passage in six practical ways:

1. "These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart:” Our children should see us spending time in God’s Word, sharing our faith, and demonstrating Christ-like character. They should be aware that the gospel has changed me and is continuing to change me. That includes family worship, family discussions, and family participation in the local church.

2. “Repeat them to your children:” I should be instructing my children, particularly when young, about the things of God. I should help them see how to live out a biblical worldview, making decisions in all arenas of life from a biblical perspective. I should not raise them to be faithful citizens in a religious subculture, but to see all of creation with biblical eyes.

3. “Talk about them when you sit in your house:” We do not talk about Jesus to others because we do not talk about Him much in our homes. Family mealtime provides a great avenue for talking about Jesus and teaching everything from civility to life lessons. Shared activities with children provide further opportunities for instruction. Research has shown the significant impact of regular family meals. Eat together and invite others to your table.

4. “When you walk along the road:” The church and the home are not the only places to learn how to live and share Christ. Our activities, from talking to the waitress at the restaurant to being courteous at the mall, help show how to live out our faith rather than compartmentalizing it in the confines of our house and the church building. Simply talking to our neighbors about things that matter help children see the world through missionary eyes. Talk about Jesus in everyday life.

5. “When you lie down and when you get up” Bedtime, especially for younger children, provides a great time for prayer and instruction in spiritual things. Sit at the end of the bed just a little longer to remind them of spiritual things. Prayer together is important. One Lifeway study showed that 88% of Christian families never prayed together ever regularly. We can hardly complain about prayer being taken from the public schools if we are not praying in our Christian homes. Pray morning and evening with your kids.

6. "Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates:” I suppose this could include Christian symbols and expressions in our homes, but more importantly, it is vital we incorporate the gospel into the fabric of the family. Is the gospel alive in how we discipline, make family purchases, and respond to suffering? Do our interactions with our neighbors should communicate Christ. We need much more than “Christian” conferences and T-shirts. We need Christ applied to the nitty-gritty of life.

Take a moment to consider what role the Great Commission has in your home. How can you and your spouse make changes to cultivate a more Christ-centered home that, not only evangelizes your children but also your neighbors? The greatest missionary force in America today sleeps in our bedrooms. May we lead, teach, and equip them well.

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Alvin L. Reid is husband to Michelle and father to Josh and Hannah. He is a professor of evangelism and student ministry at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, as well as a popular speaker and author. He has written numerous books on student ministry, evangelism, missional Christianity, and spiritual awakenings. Follow him on Twitter: @AlvinReid.

*Check out Dr. Reid’s new book from GCD Books, Gospel Advance: Leading a Movement That Changes the World.

Hobbies: Gift or God?

The moment I walked into the dorms, I was greeted by a barely clothed 19-year-old guy with an Xbox controller in his hand. He looked at me and asked, “You play Halo?” So began my undergraduate degree at a Baptist university. I had come to study the Bible and philosophy, but it seemed that many of my peers had come to enjoy four years of practicing and perfecting the art of hobby. Dedicated intramural teams, obsessive gaming, competitive fantasy football brackets, and weekends to shoot skeet or play golf were just a few of the options that college opened up for myself and hundreds of other young men. When I graduated, the hobbies just got bigger and more expensive. With salaries and full time jobs, young men are given the resources to take their hobbies and obsessions to new levels. They often have a hard time being able to enjoy their hobbies in a restful way, without immersing themselves headfirst in a world of distraction. The young seminarian might obsess over his blog, the undergraduate student might be chest deep in video games, the father is dedicated to watching every game or being out on the links every weekend, and the grandfather is hoping to re-read all his favorite Grisham novels this spring at his lake house. Like Aristotle might have said, had he had the chance to update the slang in his Nichomachean Ethics, “It’s hard to fiddle in the middle.”

Are hobbies evil? Absolutely not! But when hobbies become obsessions they flip the created order, where man exercises God-given authority and dominion over creation (Gen 1:27-31), and instead place man in subjection to the creation (Rom. 1:21-25). So, the question before us is, how do you enjoy God’s goodness in creation without making your hobby a hindrance to your faithfulness to God’s mission in your home, church, and community?

I want to state three things that we must do, truths we can’t abandon in enjoying hobbies, and two things that we can do to shape our practice of hobby.

What We Must Do

In order to be faithful men of God while enjoying God’s creation, we must:

1. Be Self-Controlled

Paul tells Timothy that those who aspire to the office of overseer “desire a noble task.” These men, the overseers, are to set an example of the lifestyle of a Godly man. Paul exhorts Timothy that these men, the standard set before the men of the church, should be “sober-minded” and “self-controlled" (1 Tim. 3:2).

What is self-control? It is the ability to restrain oneself from one thing so that one might be cast headlong into something better. Paul goes on in 1 Timothy 4:12-15, saying, “Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid theirs hands on you. Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress.”

As C.S. Lewis says in The Weight of Glory, “We are far too easily pleased.”

We refrain ourselves from immersion in hobbies so that we can immerse ourselves in communion with God. We practice self-control in our hobbies so that we can practice reckless abandonment in our pursuit of Christ.

2. Redeem the Time

Above my desk, in my office, I have a framed picture that my wonderfully creative wife made for me that has pictures of books, coffee beans, and a few quotes. Knowing that my hobbies are reading, writing, and the quest for the perfect cup of coffee, in the middle of that picture is a quote from Jonathan Edwards. The quote from his “Resolutions” says, “Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.” Underneath this quote is Paul’s admonition to the church in Ephesians 5:15-16, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making he best use of the time, because the days are evil.”

Is it lazy that I occasionally enjoy reading fiction while I watch a rack of ribs smoke on my pit? Is it sinful that my brother and I have fun attempting the maddening challenge of placing a small white ball into a hole 400 yards away? No, but there is a difference in delighting in the good gifts of God and engrossing myself in the realm of distraction.

If I look to use the “first fruits” of my time for any hobby or practice other than advancing the Kingdom in my home, church, and community, then my hobby has stolen my heart.

One way that I would encourage you to “test your hobbies” is to ask the question, “Where do I run in times of crisis?” In times of crisis, struggle, or fear we run to the functional hero of our hearts. After that argument with your wife, do you flee to tinker in your garage? After that bad news from the boss, do you escape into a fiction fantasy?

Where you run to spend your time when your “time is up” is where your worship is directed.

3. Possess a Gospel Urgency

While Paul encouraged Timothy and others to “Practice these things [scripture reading, teaching, exhortation, etc.], immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress” (1 Tim. 4:15). Paul goes on, “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.”

Our hobbies should be practiced with a gospel urgency. Vacations, hobbies, and rest does not exempt us from the ongoing mission of God in our home, church, and community. If your hobby is an escape from living under the Lordship (authority) of Christ, than your hobby is a remnant of your sinful desire for autonomy. When you are enjoying fishing on the lake…you belong to Christ, the water belongs to Christ, and the fish belong to Christ. Like Abraham Kuyper once proclaimed, “There is not one square inch in all of our human existence over which God does not cry, ‘Mine!’”

Yet the world and the spiritual forces of evil at work in the lives of unbelievers oppose Christ’s Lordship over all of creation. Your hobby must become a platform upon which you stand to proclaim “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (Ps. 8:1).

If our hobbies are lacking an urgency to know and enjoy Christ and to make him known, than they are becoming less than they were created to be.

What We Can Do

To encourage and challenge ourselves to remain faithful men of God while enjoying our hobbies we can:

1. Serve Our Wives

I love writing, so I operate a blog. My wife knows that I love to write and that if I am not blogging, I will be working on a sermon, book, article, or paper. What does it say about my heart if I write a thousand blog posts and never once use my gift of writing to honor, serve, or celebrate her? It says that I believe my hobby is from me, through me, and to me. Does that phrase sound familiar?

So I attempt to serve my wife with my writing. I write her poems and “choose your own adventure story-dates.” I am also sure to speak well of her in my writing.

Maybe you love to cook; cook her a meal. Maybe you love to work with your hands; make her something. Maybe you love to golf; take her out to her Putt-Putt. Be creative, put as much thought into including her in your hobby as you do in practicing your hobby.

2. Include Others

You are not the only guy who likes playing Madden 2013. There is a high school guy in the student ministry at your church who can destroy you, invite him over and let him teach you a few things. You are not the only man in your church who enjoys watching the games on Sunday afternoon, so invite them over and mute the TV during the commercials. You would be surprised at how excited that young man would be to get invited to your senior adult men’s domino game.

Bring other people into your hobby. Use your hobby to develop relationships with your neighbors and church family. When you see a gift as a gift, and not as an entitlement, than you will share that gift.

The real question is, “Is your hobby gift or god?”

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Kyle Worley is the author of Pitfalls: Along the Path to Young and Reformed, an editor at CBMW, and serves as Connections Minister at The Village Church Dallas Campus. He holds a double B.A. in Biblical Studies and Philosophy from Dallas Baptist University and an M.A.Th. in Church History at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He also pursuing an M.A.R at Redeemer Theological Seminary.

*This originally appeared at CBMW.

Family Sojourning and the Bible

My wife and I met in college, started dating, and never looked back. We were engaged my senior year and got married immediately after college. The biggest struggle in our marriage was discipleship. You begin asking, what does family discipleship look like practically? How can this be accomplished within the framework of two sinners living together in covenant?

Add kids into the mix and the question seems more complicated, right?

Family Discipleship Nine Years Later

My own story was one of gradual change through the constant and loving work of the Spirit. He frequently used basic, overlooked things to change my life. It took me a long time to put my arms around this truth.

During my senior year of college, I experienced a renewed passion for God. I was reading the Bible and couldn’t get enough of Jesus. I was asking questions and hearing God speak through his word and also enjoying intimate times of prayer. I was also introduced to some great books, which completely shifted the way I thought about the gospel and how it applied to me. In short, I experienced a complete paradigm shift in my Christian life. I wanted my wife to experience the same and my big question was how?

Before getting married, I read a dozen or more books on marriage. I felt ready, but old habits die hard. For much of my early Christian life I was legalistic. That sucked the joy right out of fellowship with God in his word and in prayer.

So how did I disciple my new wife? With a spoonful of gospel to help the legalism go down. I tried to force her to enjoy the same things I did. I would move beyond encouraging her and would make her feel guilty if she didn’t cross her t’s and dot her i’s.

This was disastrous not only for her but for me. The Spirit doesn’t work through coercion but by the power of the gospel (Romans 1:16-17). I felt discouraged. She felt badgered.

Fast forward almost seven years and one almost ruined marriage. It finally hit me. The Spirit works through ordinary means.

I had a grasp on a half-truth earlier in my marriage. The word and prayer are means of change through the power of the Spirit, but they are used as balm for the hurting soul not weapons to torture the weary soul.

A Family Feast

Now, I not only have my wife to disciple, I have three beautiful daughters. I keep asking myself, How can I share the love, joy, and intimacy I experience with God with my family? The answer may seem too simple, but for me, it was revolutionary.

I had been having my own personal feast with God through his word. I kept inviting my family, “Come join me. There’s food without price!” But I had rarely nourished my family. After I recently finished my yearly Scripture reading program, I decided to focus on a passage to meditate on what God had taught me. I read through Ephesians multiple times over the next two weeks.

As I was finishing Ephesians, Paul’s admonition to husbands struck me. He commends husbands to love their wives as Christ loves his bride “that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:26-27).

I asked myself, How does Christ nurture, care for, and cleanse his bride? The answer was simple - the Word. Next I had a conversation with myself that went something like this: You idiot. You’ve been feasting with God and telling your family how great this food tastes and how wonderful the fellowship was but you have never committed to nourish them.

Husbands, it’s not enough to model a loving relationship with Jesus and a consistent gospel piety. You have to share the fruit of the Spirit’s labor with your family.

You must read the Scripture with your family. Demonstrate the passion you have for the gospel in the pages of Scripture as you read. Pray that the Spirit would make the gospel stick to their bones.

The Spirit will work in our families by the same power, which he raised Christ from the dead. It’s that power which is evident in Scripture, because the words are God-breathed (2 Tim. 3:16-17). Christ's word equips our families to live on mission within our communities, churches, and families.

A Gospel Foundation

Now how do we accomplish family discipleship in the real world of work, children, marriage, and church?

Paul’s gospel-saturated admonition in Philippians 2:3-9 has transformed the way I lead and has helped create a gospel culture in our home. Read it through slowly.

Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.

First, Paul contrasts self-ambition with gospel sacrifice (vv. 2-3). Before he hears the groans about the impossibility of living out the truth of the gospel, Paul cuts the legs out from underneath that argument. The same gospel power which compelled Christ to die on the cross is now ours (“which is yours in Christ” [v. 5]). He matter of factly states, “This mindset is yours in Christ.” We are a new creation.

The Spirit taught me two principles in this passage. First, as a father and husband, I must model humility, and as a sinner, that model is most aptly seen in the way I humbly repent of my sins in front of my family. Do I bristle if my wife or even kids tell me how my unkind words hurt them? Am I too proud to admit my parenting failures to my daughters?

Second, (and this goes hand in hand) how will I respond when people graciously ask for my forgiveness? Will I make them pay? Or will I graciously forgive even as Christ graciously forgave me?

It’s easy when interacting with other sinners in such close quarters to make someone wait a few hours before you forgive them, but is that the mind that’s ours in Christ? Is that his example demonstrated in the gospel? Thankfully, the answer is no.

From One Weary Sojourner to Another

With that gospel foundation in place, here are some practical suggestions on family discipleship from one weary sojourner to another.

My daughters are growing up. First and foremost, we keep it fun and try to engage them. We use My 1st Book of Questions and Answers as a launching pad for teaching our children basic gospel truths (Also check out The Westminster Shorter Catechism Songs: The Complete CD Set and Starr Meade’s Training Hearts, Teaching Minds.)

Catechisms are like a skeleton. They hold the grand narrative in place.

We ask a couple questions. We don’t sweat it when things get busy and we miss a couple nights. With just over a hundred questions you can easily complete it multiple times throughout the year even missing multiple days. We also use The Jesus Storybook Bible to flesh out the skeleton. Sally Lloyd-Jones has done an excellent job making Jesus the hero of the grand narrative.

But the heartbeat of all of these helps is the gospel as told in Scripture. We don’t sit down and read through half the Bible. May just be a few verses. We ask basic questions about the story and try to place it within the big picture of the gospel.

Not every night, and sometimes not scheduled, we sing with our kids. Make it fun. My daughters love Sovereign Grace’s Walking with the Wise. We pump up the volume. We sing. We dance. We praise God. Nothing fancy. Remember Moses’s command was to talk about the greatness of God during the course of everyday life.

My normal pattern is to read through the Bible once in the year, and I now share the journey with my wife. I intentionally disciple my wife by washing her with the Word. Discussion naturally occurs because of the difficulty of many texts. Our general rule is to read together at least five days a week. That flexibility leaves room for disaster to strike (and it normally does). She reads a chapter. I read one. We read together around 20 minutes. That’s the length of one sitcom.

We also spend time together praying. We pray from Valley of Vision and then incorporate personal prayer out of these. These prayers are fertile gospel soil and will encourage you to pray to God honestly in the name of Jesus.

The Bible also provides a natural and comfortable setting for families to talk about a variety of topics. If you have emerging youngsters who have questions about anything from sex to homosexuality to bad stuff happening in the world and you don’t know how to breach these topics with them, just sit down and start reading the Bible together. It's the best conversation starter and ender.

In Genesis alone you might get questions like, Why does Jacob have more than one wife? What does sex mean? And what is the proper context for it? Why are these men trying to break down Lot’s doors? The grand narrative with its Hero is the only context where these discussions will be meaningful.

I have shared a lot of information from nine years worth of my own failures and success. Our family is changing through the steady work of the gospel in our hearts. Do not walk away from this discouraged. The gospel frees us from shame, guilt, and accusations.

Live in light of the gospel, which has so transformed your life. Understand life happens, and in your home everything won’t always be tidy. Sometimes both kids will be cranky, the washer will flood, and you will be so exhausted you can barely move. Take heart. “A bruised reed he will not break” (Is. 42:3).

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Mathew B. Sims is the Editor-in-Chief at Exercise.com and has authored, edited, and contributed to several books including A Household Gospel, We Believe: Creeds, Confessions, & Catechisms for Worship, A Guide for Advent, Make, Mature, Multiply, and A Guide for Holy Week. Mathew, LeAnn (his wife), and his daughters Claire, Maddy, and Adele live in Taylors, SC at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains with their Airdale Terrier. They attend Downtown Presbyterian Church (PCA). Visit MathewBryanSims.com!

Freed to Make Jesus Famous

  In the months leading up to my daughter’s birth, I contemplated what it would be like to raise a child. I thought, if I can barely remember to put deodorant on in the mornings, how could I possibly steward another life? More importantly, how will I lead her to cherish Jesus? What if she one day rejects the gospel?

I felt the enormous weight of Deuteronomy 6 where God commands his people to teach his statutes “diligently to your children, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deut. 6:7). Raising an eternal soul was, and still is, terrifying.

The Bible tells us that the home is the most immediate context for discipleship. I am called to love God with all my heart, soul, and strength and to teach this diligently to my little girl. My wife and I have the unique mission of raising our daughter in a gospel-saturated home, reminding her about what God has done when we sit, when we walk, when we lie down, and when we rise. This is a beautiful calling, and totally beyond me.

When thinking of raising my daughter, I’m reminded that Jesus’s call for us to make disciples of all nations can also feel like a daunting task (Matt. 28:18–20). We wonder, how could I tell another sinner about Jesus when I myself am a sinner? What if I don’t say the right things? What if my own imperfections and foibles deter them from believing the gospel’s power? This calling, too, can be terrifying.

Beware the Obsession

I love being a dad. I thank God for my little girl every day. But as with any great blessing from God, the blessing of a child can make us want to squeeze too tight and never let go.

I have already been tempted to shirk the “prefab parenting models” in an attempt to raise my daughter the “right” way. There’s both an internal pressure within my own heart and an external pressure from the world to have a child who turns out perfect. I want her to love Jesus and to desire the supremacy of God above all things, but these pressures, and my inordinate concerns, often command me to focus on her conduct more than her heart. I hear others complain about unruly, bratty kids and I think, “That won’t be my girl!” This can be consuming.

When we invest ourselves in the lives of others, this tension is no different. We experience the extreme joy of God’s call to show them the ways of Jesus. Discipleship is wonderful. We feel responsible for their souls, and we long to see their lives radically transformed by the gospel. One of the greatest phenomena in God’s creation is watching the caterpillar become a butterfly, and this type of spectacle is beautiful to witness in the heart of an unbeliever.

The dangers lie in basing your own worth on the actions of those in whom you invest. It is tempting to allow our self-esteem to rise and fall based on another’s failures and successes. If the person you’re discipling fails morally, it is easy to blame yourself. If they show impressive growth theologically, it’s easy to congratulate yourself on the extraordinary ability to relay the deep things of God. This, too, can be consuming.

Certainly, there are many ways we can go wrong in discipling others. The sin that corrupts our hearts can lead us to dark places. Yet when we look to the cross, the hope we find in Jesus can take away all the anxieties and dangers of placing the results of discipleship on our own shoulders.

Pointing to Christ

In any discipleship relationship, whether our children or our neighbors, it is imperative that we continually point them to Jesus. And when we find ourselves getting rusty in this work, that’s when we need the gospel all the more.

Eugene Peterson says that “discipleship is a process of paying more and more attention to God’s righteousness and less and less attention to our own.” We were saved by grace through faith that was not, and is not, of our own power (Eph. 2:8). In the cross we see our need, how desperate we are, and the ultimate display of God’s love for us. The cross that we proclaim is also the cross that frees us from mistaking discipleship to be about us. This is the good news that we must keep at the center.

If we’re not seeing this glory, we cannot expect to lead anyone else to see it. At least, not in a way that will truly matter. However, Paul reminds us that “it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). If we recognize this, the shackles of self-affirmation will no longer weigh us down. We can joyfully disciple others with the expectation that Jesus’s life-changing gospel will prevail regardless of our shortcomings.

Whether I’m holding my daughter or talking to my neighbor, I’m freed to make Jesus’s name famous rather than my own.

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Brandon Smith (@BrandonSmith85) is Director of GCD, Associate Editor at The Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood, and Director of Communications at Criswell College. He is proud to be Christa’s husband and Harper Grace’s daddy.

[A version of this article originally appeared at Desiring God.]

4 Ways to Avoid Health and Wealth Parenting

Right now my daughter Maddy doesn’t see the beauty of the storm. She is afraid of thunder and lightning. She could be dead asleep and, within minutes of the first crash of thunder, she’s awake, alert, and calling for mommy or daddy. Her fear has come into focus this summer because in South Carolina, we’ve had a flood of rain this year. When these quick storms first began, I found myself comforting my daughter by saying something like, “Don’t worry. God created the thunder and you don’t have anything to worry about.”

It’s true that she doesn’t have much to worry about in our home when it’s thundering and lightning outside, but the more I thought about the way I approached this situation, the more I realized that I was comforting my children in this way a lot of the time. I was taking the easy way out, promising comfort in exchange for tears.

Then it hit me. The gospel I was rehearsing to them was a health and wealth gospel, a skewed view of God’s sovereignty in pain and suffering.

“God loves you, so nothing bad will happen.”

“You don’t need to worry about living in a fallen world if you just have enough faith.”

“The reality of suffering will never touch you.”

If we preach this kind of gospel to our children now, how will they respond when sin touches their life? How will they respond when they see death ravage a loved one? How will they respond when they are ridiculed by their peers?

We do serve the God who created all things with the power of his word. He does providentially control all of creation. He does sovereignly work things for our good in Christ. But sometimes that means we will suffer. My children need to know this.

As I talked to friends with children and also recalled interactions, I’ve heard between parents and kids, I don’t think this approach is uncommon. As I said, it’s easy. It doesn’t require us to engage in hard conversations. But I want to offer a gospel-motivated, gospel-driven alternative for us as parents. Here are four ways that we can avoid health and wealth parenting.

1. Teach Our Children to Rest in the Love and Sovereignty of God

First, we must urge our children to trust the God who loves us and is sovereign over everything. We must not downplay these truths. They are not in opposition; rather they fit together like a puzzle. The sovereignty of God is not a hammer. It’s a pillow and blanket. The most fearful thing I can think of is living in a world where God is not in control, where he is taken by surprise, where he loves us but is powerless over our suffering.

The love of God is not squishy like a jellyfish. He doesn’t love us in a way that’s not tangible. He loves us in the form of Jesus Christ. God sent his own Son to die for us while we were yet sinners. If God uses “the hands of lawless men” who would crucify Jesus, for his “definite plan” (Acts 2:23), he will use our suffering in his plan as well. These two truths are bound together eternally. You will not find God’s love expressed outside of his sovereign control. Our kids must see that God’s sovereignty is never expressed outside of his love.

2. Teach our Children to Pursue Jesus

Second, we must urge our children to steadfastly pursue Jesus. Jesus is their only hope. They have no other. If they pursue health, it will fail. If they pursue wealth, it will destroy them. If they pursue relationships, they will be let down. If they pursue fame, it bring them low. These are all things that when sought lead to destruction. But Jesus does not fail. He does not destroy. He does not let down. He does not bring low. He exalts.

If you teach your children to pursue to Jesus, they will lack nothing. He is pleasures forevermore. The loss of everything compared to gaining Jesus will in the end seem light and momentary. That can be hard to fathom now, but it will not be hard when our King returns.

Not only does he provide joy and hope in the midst of suffering, he also suffers alongside of us. He obeyed the law perfectly. He loved well. He lived life to its fullest. And he also suffered. Because of that, he knows what suffering feels like (Heb. 2:18). That’s important. You can also see how Jesus cares for others who suffer when he comforts Mary and Martha when Lazarus dies (John 11:1-45). He is genuinely sorrowful. He mourns with them. He is moved to tears by the suffering of his friends. We can expect Christ to have the same compassion with us. When pursued, Jesus provides joy and hope and he does so experientially.

3. Rehearse the Gospel through Tough Conversations

Third, we must rehearse the gospel through tough conversations. My oldest daughter Claire has often asked me, “Will you get old and die?” It’s odd that a child would think about death, but it is a reality in our world. Everyone dies. It would be easy to brush off her question and respond with something like, “Dad will never leave you. Don’t worry about that.” It’s a lot more beneficial to speak age appropriately and candidly. Something like, “Daddy will die someday. Death isn’t the way it should be. But you know something? We belong to God in life and death. He has promised to be faithful all the way until the end. Just like he’s faithful to me, he’ll be faithful to you. No matter what.”

Tough conversations are an opportunity to rehearse the gospel with our children. These are practice runs. These truths aren’t dusty. Everyone will meet circumstances where only the gospel makes sense of life. Rehearsing the gospel by having tough conversation prepares our children to respond well when those times come.

Athletes practice and practice and practice more to create muscle memory. They want to repeat their route, the play, or the motion so many times that when game time comes their bodies react instinctively. That’s gospel rehearsal. It’s spiritual muscle memory. We repeat the promises of God. We point them to Jesus Christ. We sear Scripture into their hearts. We teach them how to pray. These kinds of conversations may raise more questions. That’s okay. Without being candid with them, when “the sea billows roll,” our children may falter. With tough conversations rooted in gospel rehearsal, they will see the other side.

4. Respond Well When Suffering Comes

Finally, we must respond well when suffering comes. It will arise in some form or another. Some of us may fight cancer. Some of us might grieve over the death of a loved one. Some of us might fight against abuse. Some of us might feel the weight of injustice. Some of us might be killed. We shouldn’t downplay suffering. It’s a result of the Fall. But God will wipe away all tears and make all things new when he returns. We must stomp our feet, mourn, and be righteously angry over the sin and suffering that we experience in this world. But we must do this with Jesus Christ in view. We must suffer well.

We respond well because we are in Christ. He is our Head and we are his body. He is our trailblazer. The cross is beautiful because it absorbs our sin and suffering. When we sin against others, we can boldly repent, because Jesus bears the weight of our sins. We can also forgive others for the same reason. The same goes for suffering. It is not escapism. Or cheap grace. It is weighty grace. It is grace anchored in the bloody wounds of Jesus. We must respond well when we suffer so that our children know we take God at His word and the gospel is deadly serious to us. Our kids will see this, and through it they will see Jesus.

So let’s not promise our kids health and wealth. Let’s promise them Jesus Christ in life and death. Let’s promise them a God who is faithful through anything they may experience in this fallen world.

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Mathew B. Sims is the Editor-in-Chief at Exercise.com and has authored, edited, and contributed to several books including A Household Gospel, We Believe: Creeds, Confessions, & Catechisms for Worship, A Guide for Advent, Make, Mature, Multiply, and A Guide for Holy Week. Mathew, LeAnn (his wife), and his daughters Claire, Maddy, and Adele live in Taylors, SC at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains with their Airdale Terrier. They attend Downtown Presbyterian Church (PCA). Visit MathewBryanSims.com!

Like Father, Like Sons

  I attended three schools a year for a while. My dad was managing in professional baseball and decided early on that the family being together was worth the sacrifice, struggle, and difficulty of constantly having to travel and change schools, and the security of a “normal” home life.

Of course, I loved it. It was normal for me. Home was the clubhouse and the smell of pine tar, or the luggage rack on the bus where I would sleep as the team went from town to town. Home was watching my dad play cards on a cooler set in the aisle, covered with a towel to keep the cards from sliding off, holding a beer can in his lap. His there-ness far exceeded any inconvenience. How could anything else be an option?

After watching Bob Ross paint a "happy squirrel" and my sister and I trying to paint along—a kind of "paint by Ross" version of paint by numbers—I would take a quick afternoon nap and then head to the park with dad in time for batting practice. The nap was necessary because I would be at the park until about 11 o'clock at night.

I would hang out in his office, shag fly balls during batting practice, be the batboy for the game; occasionally I would see him get thrown out of a game for arguing with the umpire, or light up one of his players for some particular reason (usually disrespect of some kind, "This is a monologue, not a dialogue!").

Child psychologists would probably sniff their noses at my childhood, like dogs smelling meat, ready to pounce: “Children need stability!” Yes, they do, and the father is to be the anchor.

Secure as Sojourners

The Father’s children aren’t at home either (1 Pet. 2:11). Furthermore, our well-being doesn’t necessitate wealth, possessions, the best schools, or people who approve of us. What anchors us, why we are secure, why we are commanded countless times, “Do not fear!” is that the Father is with us.

See, it is easy to excuse your lack of there-ness with your desire to “give your children a better life” or “make sure they can get the best education.” Those are well-meaning desires, and a father should work hard to leave a good legacy to his children. We should plan well, save well, and block for our family like a bull-headed fullback paves the way for the tailback to get up field. That approach only works, however, if you are playing the same game, and if the goal is the end zone of our children knowing the Father—for that to happen, you have to be there.

I have never met someone who hated their father because he didn’t buy them a nice car; I have, however, met plenty of people with jacked up lives and relationships—with a degree from a reputable university hanging on the wall—because their dad was not ever home.

Paul Tripp tells a similar story:

“When I speak in churches, I often single out the men and challenge, ‘Some of you are so busy in your careers that you’re seldom home, and when you are, you are so physically exhausted that you have nothing to offer your children. You don’t even know your own kids. I offer a radical challenge to you. Go to your boss and ask for a demotion. Take less pay. Move out of that dream house and into a smaller one. Sell your brand new car and drive an older one. Be willing to do what God has called you to do in the life of your children.’

In a culture with two-income families, increasingly that challenge must also be made to women who also sacrifice family for career.

I made that appeal at one home-school conference and it angered a man in the crowd, although I didn’t know it at the time. Two years later he came over to me during a conference break. As he got closer, he began to weep. He said, ‘Two years ago I heard you give the challenge you just gave tonight and I got angry. I thought, What right do you have to say that? But I was haunted by your words. I thought, He’s speaking about me. My whole life is away from the home and I don’t know my own kids. I finally went to my boss one morning and said, ‘I want to talk to you about my position.’ My boss said, ‘Look, we’ve advanced you as much and as fast as we can.’ And I said, ‘No, no, just hear me, I want a demotion.’ The boss looked startled. He asked, ‘What are you talking about?’ I said, ‘The most important thing in my life is not this job. The most important thing is that God has given me five children. I‘m His instrument in forming their souls. But right now, I don’t even know my own kids.’

The boss said, ‘I’ve never heard this kind of conversation before and I’ll probably never hear it again. I’m very moved. We’ll find you a position where you can work forty hours a week. You can punch in and punch out and have less responsibility. But I’m not going to be able to pay you enough.’ I said, ‘That’s fine.’

We sold the house of our dreams, got rid of two luxury cars and bought a mini-van. It’s been two years now, and not one of my kids has come to me and said ‘Dad, I wish we lived in a big house,’ or ‘Dad, I wish we had new cars.’ But over and over again they have come and said, ‘Dad, we’ve been having so much fun with you. It’s great to have you around.’ Now, for the first time, I can say I know exactly where my children are. I know their hearts. I know what I need to be doing in their lives. I’m actually being a father.”

The Gospel is not a call to comfort. It is news that the Father wants to be with us and will sacrifice even His Son to do so. However, it is also a call to join the Father in what He is doing—saving sinners for His glory. He is not so concerned with our comfort, or our safety; He is not always concerned we are at the perfect church (His “school” for us); He is not losing sleep over how much He could provide us (for some, He gives great wealth, for others, just what they need to get by). He does, however, promise His presence is with us. Look at the shear tonnage of verses explicitly stating God’s there-ness and the context of the promise:

“Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the LORD your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.” (Deuteronomy 31:6)

“No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you . . . do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:5,9)

“Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” (Genesis 28:15)

“Then David said to Solomon his son, ‘Be strong and courageous and do it. Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed, for the LORD God, even my God, is with you. He will not leave you or forsake you, until all the work for the service of the house of the LORD is finished.’” (1 Chronicles 28:20)

“Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’” (Hebrews 13:5)

“And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’” (Matthew 28:18-20)

The call is never to comfort. In fact, quite the opposite. The demands are great: Leading people into the Promised Land, building a great temple that foreshadows Christ, obeying a radical call to contentment with money, and making disciples of all nations. The anchor in these great calls of sacrifice, discomfort, and lack of security is the presence of God. We could have all the money in the world, the best education, the safest (and nicest) cars, and still drift out to sea, the weight of all that “stuff” drowning us—we need the Anchor.

Quantity Time with Your Children

Quality time is a myth; your children need quantity time. You are their anchor. Your there-ness makes them feel safe, loved, and cared for. Furthermore, your calling is to disciple them. This means they are to go with you as you do life. Your children are not some slice of a pie that can be compartmentalized from the other pieces. Your children should help you around the house and go with you to do chores, and you should let them watch you in life—how else will they learn? Certainly there are times of sitting down and reading with them or playing with them, but it cannot just be that. Whenever you can, bring them along. This is how we are instructed to teach them all that God has commanded us:

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 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.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)

This is the foundational text for discipleship in parenting. The Christian life is not compartmentalized from “everyday” life; it saturates and permeates all of life—and your parenting does as well. How can we be faithful to this if we aren’t there?

The Father sacrificed much for you to be in His presence. As fathers imaging the Father, we must sacrifice time with the guys, hunting trips, late hours at work, and time at the golf course so that our children would be anchored—not adrift at sea, being “tossed to and fro by every wave of doctrine” (Eph. 4:14) or every swell the ideas and philosophies of this world ask them to surf in. It is our time, our there-ness, that they need.

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Jim Essian planted The Paradox Church in 2011 and serves as Lead Pastor. The Paradox is an Acts 29 Network church in Downtown Fort Worth, TX. Jim played eight years of professional baseball in the Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Detroit Tigers organizations prior to planting a church. Jim and his wife, Heather, have two girls, Harper and Hollis.

[This is an excerpt from Jim's book, Like Father, Like Sons: Meditations on God as Our Father.]

Parenting and Grocery Store Tantrums

  As parents of four children, my wife Jill and I don’t have to leave the house to have opportunities to disciple not-yet believers in Christ. Add to the mix that we also need to be reminded of and apply the gospel to our lives, and you have a small community on mission within the confines of our home! We don’t only go to missional community to make disciples; we are a missional community that makes disciples. We are always making disciples, especially when parenting our kids. This means that when a kid holding Legos in one hand and a lightsaber in the other wakes me up at 5:30 a.m. to tell me he’s hungry or has to pee, it’s discipleship time. I don’t get to throw the gospel out the window because it isn’t time to gather with others for worship or our weekly meal yet.

If we are to see the mission of Jesus move forward in our homes and neighborhoods, something more than a scheduled series of events or classes is needed. While these events and classes might be valuable equipping tools to help resource our people, only when we approach everyday life situations as opportunities to bring the gospel to bear on each other’s lives will we consistently learn how to walk in obedience to all that Jesus has commanded.

Discipleship in All of Life

In the mess of everyday life, we must apply the gospel. Applying the gospel is speaking the truth of what Christ's life, death, resurrection, and ascension has done for those who believe. The gospel radically changes who we are, and often in the ordinariness of everyday life, we forget who we are in the gospel. We are sons and daughters, made into new creations through the Christ. So, applying the gospel is reminding a believer of their identity in Christ by speaking the work of Christ into their particular situation, and by showing how Jesus is better than the current idol they are desiring in that moment. But to know how to bring the gospel to bear on their life, you need to not only need to know the gospel, you need to know the person too. You need listen to them, you need to hear or see what they struggling with. Applying the gospel requires proximity, life together. Paul said that it is through speaking the truth in love to one another that we grow up in Christ (Eph. 4:15).

Jill and I are blessed to be raising four children. This gives much opportunity for us to speak the gospel with them (and each other) in ordinary life. Discipling kids, much like anyone else, is no easy task. Apart from the work of the Spirit in our lives, it's actually impossible. Left to ourselves, don’t we just want to manage our kids behavior so we are comfortable?

We as parents are often more caught up in how our kids behavior reflects back on us than whether our children are honoring and displaying God. How often does our embarrassment by their sin lead us into shaming them? But do we stop and ask ourselves, “How is this discipling them to Jesus?” Truth is, it's not. That's just piling our sin on theirs and making a big old mess.

What if, as parents, we were so rooted in our identity in Christ that when our kid’s behavior is deplorable we lovingly corrected rather than hopelessly joined in? What if this kind of discipleship of our children became more common in our own lives? What if this was more common not only with our children but in all of our relationships? How much more might we proclaim the gospel if this kind of discipleship was our normal, everyday routine?

Everyday Discipleship in the Grocery Store

Jill and I will often and intentionally go grocery shopping together with all four of our kids. While this may sound a little like we’re asking for trouble, we do this intentionally so that we can “bump into” people we might know individually and strike up a conversation. Of course, there are times when this may seem to backfire when our four kids get a little out of hand. Crowded grocery stores, plus two adults, plus four kids, equals plenty of opportunities for our idols to surface. There is nothing like a little stress to pull our sin to the surface.

On one such trip, our youngest son was disappointed over not getting to ride in a particular type of cart. He wanted the race car shopping cart, but all of those were being used by other customers and he wouldn’t settle for the regular shopping cart. He threw a tantrum. In the moment of my son’s tantrum in a busy grocery store, I forgot the gospel. I wanted to control his behavior. I wanted him to be quiet so people would stop looking at us. Ultimately, I was in sin, wanting my son to obey me so that others would see me as a good parent.

Jill, rightly bringing the gospel to bear, gently corrected our son. She gospeled his heart while rebuking his behavior. She didn’t need to focus on what others think of her because of our kids’ behavior; she needed to disciple our son. So, she was freed up to bring the gospel to our disobedient child in the midst of everyday life.

Do you see it? I was living out of a false identity. When my son threw a fit in a public place, my identity was in how poorly my kid was behaving and in what others might think of me. Contrast that with Jill, resting securely in her identity in Christ. She loved, adopted, and accepted; she was able to discipline our son correctly. Like Jesus, she pursued the one in need with little concern with what those around her thought of her. She certainly addressed our son’s behavior but ultimately, and just like Jesus, she shared how the source of this outburst was treasuring stuff more than obeying God’s command to honor and obey his parents (Eph. 6:1).

She was able to tell our son that she too often fails to obey God, that she, like him is a mess and needs the grace of God to obey. She offered hope in the gospel by telling him, “Jesus is the one, the only one, who obeyed his Father perfectly. And he obeyed right away, all the way and with a happy heart. He obeyed to death, paying the price for all your disobedience and my disobedience so that if we trust in him, we can be brought near to God. Son, you’re not good and neither am I. We both need Jesus to rescue us from our wanting other things more than what he wants for us.” That’s speaking the truth in love. In that moment, it was precisely what our young son needed to hear. Maybe you would say it a little differently. Certainly the same gospel presentation doesn’t need to be shared in all situations, but we should seek to speak the truth in love in some way regardless of the situation.

As I watched her demonstrate Jesus in her pursuit of a sinner (our child) and heard her declare the gospel, I was convicted of my own sin. My son was restored and got into the regular shopping cart and we went on our way.

Freedom in the Gospel

As we travelled the aisles getting groceries, I was growing more and more disappointed that I wasn’t able to do what my wife had just done. “Some leader of the household you are!” I thought to myself. And before I could move any deeper into condemning myself, my wife preached the gospel to me, as well. She turned to me and reminded me of what the Spirit had just shown me, that I was not helping our son by getting frustrated because of my fear others. Then she reminded me that God is glorious so I don’t have to fear others, and that the gospel is big enough for me to find forgiveness for this and all sin.

The gospel is real and it is very, very big. Bigger than my sin; bigger than my children's sin. Look, we don’t always get this right in my household. If you spend some time with us, you’ll recognize that we are far from perfect in demonstrating and declaring the gospel. We need much grace. But our hope doesn’t rest in our ability to be perfect inasmuch as the ability of the Perfect One to perfect us. While we desire to walk in obedience in making disciples, ultimately my obedience is not as important as Christ’s obedience is to the outcomes.

The gospel frees us to see these challenging situations as opportunities for discipleship. We can either join in the sin of others and make disciples of ourselves or demonstrate and declare the gospel and make disciples of Jesus. As parents we all disciple our children in the ways of someone. As followers of Jesus, we have the power through the Spirit to disciple them, and all people, in the ways of Jesus.

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Gino Curcuruto is a disciple of Jesus, husband to Jill, and father of four. He is a chiropractor by trade and missionary by calling. Gino enjoys making disciples in the everyday: at home, at work, on the block, and within the church. Twitter: @ginoc

Church Planter's Wife: Are You Willing?

  Unpacking in our new home in a new state far from our families, I opened a box marked Fragile in big black letters. Inside, buried under bubble wrap, I found my framed wedding vows. While I searched the master bedroom for the perfect spot where the frame could hang, I read what I had committed to Kyle on our wedding day. Just as it had when I had first written the words, my heart stopped on one line.

I vow to support the ministry that God gives you.

An Overarching Willingness

When I wrote those vows in the weeks leading up to our wedding, I read them several times, each time imagining myself speaking them on our wedding day and, each time, hesitating at the promise to support Kyle’s calling into ministry. Although they were weighty, the other lines about faithfulness and commitment felt right to me; I could confidently make those promises to Kyle. I considered scratching the ministry line because it seemed out of place for wedding vows, but my heart felt unsettled at that prospect, too. I couldn’t pinpoint the difficulty surrounding this one vow. Kyle had a clear call to ministry, of which I was fully supportive. In fact, although I had rarely voiced it, I had felt a similar call on my life from the time I was in high school. I suspected I would marry someone with the same calling. When Kyle told me what he wanted to do with his life, I thought, Well, of course! as if it were silly to consider anything else. We rarely discussed the calling—it was a given, a natural next step for both of us, something we were willing to give our lives for. The hesitation, then, to put my support in writing surprised me. Possibly for the first time, in the middle of writing my wedding vows, I considered what ministry might mean for my life.

As I measured the future with a moment of God-given clarity, I saw what a lifetime of ministry might entail: shouldering heavy responsibilities, giving ourselves away to others, living far away from family, or possibly enduring criticism or defeat for the sake of Christ. Because Kyle had surrendered control of his future to God, my vow of support meant stepping into his shadow and following him where God led. Was I willing? Was my conviction so firm that I would speak those words to Kyle and to God in front of our friends and family?

A Specific Willingness

Eight years after our wedding day, I stood in our new home, holding those vows in my hands. We had just moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, to start a church from scratch. I recalled hearing the term church planter in seminary, but had not known what it meant, certainly not imagining the term would ever describe us. Yet there I stood, dusting off a frame of my wedding vows in a home and a city where we didn’t know anyone. Although much had changed since the day we wrote our promises down on scratch paper—we had three little boys and Kyle’s experience of serving on staff at a church in Texas— the same questions arose in my heart, urging for a silent renewal of the vow I had made to my husband. When I’d first said those words, they had been a general affirmation of the calling on my husband’s life. Now we faced the difficult work of church planting. My support and affirmation of my husband’s ministry would be crucial.

Was I willing?

I said yes on my wedding day, and I said yes to church planting. And—this is very much the key to being a minister’s wife—I have said yes every day since, most of the time with joy, sometimes with reluctance and selfish resentment, but nonetheless a yes.

I vowed a commitment to my husband, but I’ve discovered the commitment, the yes, that sustains is my submission to God. My yes is to Him and will naturally align itself as support of what my husband does as a minister of the gospel.

An Ongoing Willingness

Three years after the day I laid my head down on my pillow in our new home in a new state far from our families, wondering if something could be made out of nothing, God has done it. He has used His people, so broken and weak, to bring light to a spiritually dark place.

Every so often, I stand in front of my wedding vows, hanging framed on the wall. Just as when I wrote the words, my heart stops on one line.

I vow to support the ministry that God gives you.

Clearly, my support and affirmation of my husband’s ministry has been vital. And, clearly, God has moved powerfully around and among us.

But the work is far from complete. The Lord is still calling on me to move forward in faith—loving, serving, discipling, and leading. Church planting—and all of ministry—is a faith marathon, not a sprint. Daily He asks for my heart, that He might cultivate it, so as to produce fruit in and around me.

Am I willing?

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Christine Hoover is the author of The Church Planting Wife: Help and Hope for Her Heart (Moody, 2013). She is a church planting wife and the mom of three boys. She also encourages ministry-minded women to live and lead from grace on her blog, Grace Covers Me.

[This article is an excerpt from Christine's book, mentioned above. Used with permission from the author.]