Family Worship

I am becoming more and more convinced that most of “the church” is looking in all the wrong places to explain what ails us. There is so much hand-wringing, and much of it justified, over why we are losing a generation of kids but the solutions proposed often fail to get at the heart of the matter.

I read an article on the webpage of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood titled: Family Worship and it really struck a chord for me. Here is a sample:

First, let us begin by emphatically declaring it is parents (fathers in particular) and not the church who are given the primary responsibility for calling the next generation to hope in God. The church serves a supplementary role, reinforcing the biblical nurture that is occurring in the home. It is not the job of “professionals” at the church to rear the children of believers in the faith. Far too often, Sunday Schools, children’s ministries, and youth ministries have become substitutes for the home training of children. Christian parents have largely abdicated their God-given responsibility to insure that their children are instructed in the things of God.

If this is the reality of the situation for most people, we must ask a question of utmost importance to Christians. In the midst of our busy lives, who is given the responsibility of rearing the next generation in the Christian faith? Who is given the responsibility of calling the next generation to hope in God?

Strong homes, strong families led by fathers and mothers who understand and embrace their roles ought to be in a position of primacy when it comes to the next generation of kids. I don’t care how big your youth program is, how many outings to play paintball they go on, how hip your “youth pastor” is, if parents are not teaching the kids the Word of God and raising them in the fear and admonition of the Lord, it is of minimal value. Granted, there are kids who come to youth events and AWANA and that is really their only exposure to the Gospel on a regular basis. But how many of them ever come really show any fruit? Doing an end-around the parents by entertaining kids is a mostly futile effort because we cannot undo in a couple of hours what they see from their friends, their schools, their world and especially their parents the rest of the week.

Not only is the local church organization not helping, it may be harming the effort. Not intentionally or maliciously, but because in the desire to provide more and more programs, it becomes a de facto replacement and lets parents “off the hook”. You can feel good about yourself because you are doing what you are supposed to be doing. After all, my kids go to Youth Group every Wednesday and Sunday school every Sunday morning! Just because I have no idea what is going on or being taught in those setting doesn’t mean anything. Having worship in your home with your family is so old fashioned, so “Little House on the Prairie”. I ain’t Pa Wilder and we pay a youth pastor to teach the kiddies, so back off!

As the CBMW article points out, we are not given much latitude to be laissez-faire when it comes to teaching our children. The article refers the reader to Deuteronomy 6:7…

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. (Deu 6:7)

Who is going to teach them? YOU! How are YOU going to teach them? DILLIGENTLY! When are YOU going to teach them DILLIGENTLY? When you lie down, when you rise, when you walk, when you sit, etc. etc. etc. In other words YOU are to teach your children DILLIGENTLY and do so as part of the warp and woof of your every day life, not twice a week for an hour by someone else. YOU!

Amen to that and ouch as well, because I have not been the kind of servant-leader in my home that I am called to be. Believe me when I write that if you read my blog with any regularity, you are going to see a lot more of this sort of stuff going forward because that is where I need a great deal of help, as does much of the rest of the church, in being a servant-leader in my home.