Tag: children

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Worship or Sports?

The contrast seems almost profane, but yet our evangelical culture allows this profane contrast to sound sensical. While sports can be important and should play a role in our lives–I speak as a lover of sports–our priorities must never be confused. Over at Reformation 21 the ever prolific Mark Jones offers some thoughts:

I think it is important, in all things, for our children to learn from their parents that from the time they come out of the womb to the time they leave the home the Lord must come first. Following Christ demands that we even renounce our family if we have to (Lk. 9:57-62; Lk. 14:26); how much more should we renounce sports for Christ’s sake? We are always to seek first the kingdom of God (Matt. 6:33).
Giving up worship for sports is not an option for Christians. In fact, to miss worship because of sports is positively wicked. Your children will not likely be converted on the field or on the court or on the diamond. In God’s house, with God’s people, they are in the most important place for their never-dying souls. They are in the place that shapes their living for the week, week after week, year after year, decade after decade.
The most important thing Christians can do in this world is worship God in the corporate assembly of his people on the Lord’s Day. Think about that. We enter into the heavenly places when we worship. We commune with the triune God and his people. Through faith, we receive grace upon grace, and we offer praises to the living God. And would we rob our children of this inestimable blessing for a game?

While I have written about this in my little book The Trinitarian Father and have written about it elsewhere, the conversation seems to be in constant need of being stressed. This is not merely a question of to be or not to be sabbatarian. I know many like myself who would take a clear exception to the Westminster Confession in favor of the continental view who still sees this element as binding. Jones asserts that this compromise is positively wicked and can have a negative affect on the religious education of our own children.

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Give them stories

It was Russell Kirk who once said, “If you don’t give young people good stories, they will seek out bad ones.” I have told my children many times about my days growing up in Brazil. I told them about the poverty that was so prevalent; the slums that provided an unforgettable scent to our little part of the city. I also told them about the soccer games we had near the slumsa and how the smell never bothered us when we were communing around the sacrament of a soccer ball. My children look at me with wonder in their eyes. They can hardly believe that their father had such a history. It’s my story and I tell them as often as possible.

My hope is that as they grow I may be able to tell them grown-up stories about my older years as a teenager and the lessons I learned. I want to put it all in the context of daddy’s commitment to Jesus and how Jesus delivered their father from a multitude of sins. These are good stories. I want them to see redemption in each one of them. I want them to have good stories in a world shaped and orchestrated by God. I want them to hear of good stories where faithful saints undergo pain and persecution, but yet find hope in God through it all.

I pray that my children will not seek out bad stories due to the lack of good ones.

Phillip Pullman stated that “After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” I want my children to see stories in relationship and never isolated from our provision. I want them to hear them and through them see that we are providing them a form of food that will sustain them in their own stories.

There are many stories in this world. Some of them are true, good, and beautiful. Some of them are false and are meant to take away your appetite from the true story-teller of this world; the Creator of all stories. When my children come across these types of stories may they see it for what they are: pseudo versions of God’s narrative; anti-story.

  1. known as favelas  (back)
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How to Have the Perfect Family

This is an important article. I hope you read intently each word. I would be so bold as to say that it may change everything you ever thought about the family. I am not one for hyperbole, though I wish I had written this piece a million times. Better, I wish I had the opportunity to practice this consistently in my own home. I am in the middle of the battle. I am not post-battle wishing I had done things differently in battle. I am in it. The diapers in my trash can prove it. The smell of spit-up–oh, that awful smell! My wife (peace be upon her) is amazing! She is quick to love, tempered, and full of patience. It is safe to say we have a perfect family. I never though it would have been so simple. After eight years of theological training, an almost completed counseling certification, and I think only the last few years I discovered that I have arrived. Our family is perfect. Our children are perfect. They are perfect in the precise way God intended them to be.

Now, you may ask: “I pray, dear sir, tell my thy secret?” Indeed I will. How to have a perfect family? Admit your imperfection as a parent. Legalists will never have perfect families because they will always set a standard that is too high for their children or themselves to fulfill. They refuse to see the error in their own ways, and they trap their children in a warming pot just comfortable enough for them to realize they are ok when in reality they are not. But the biblical parent is quick to admit his fault before his family. Go ahead. Try it. Perfection draws nigh.

It was a warm afternoon in North Florida. You may be tempted to think that that is the definition of Florida, but it’s not. This afternoon was particularly hot. At that moment I felt the unbearableness of being human.  I felt exposed. Drops of sweat slowly creeped down my shirt. At that moment if Mother Teresa knocked my door I would have told her to come back later. So, it happened. One of my children disobeyed my direct orders. Mind you: at that moment the world revolved around me and my wet woes. I quickly reacted–told him to stop what he was doing in a less than tender voice and proceeded in my liturgy of self-pity. You see, at that moment I did not want a perfect family. I wanted my own perfection. That’s unhealthy. It took me a while before I was able to admit my stupidity. I did and quickly repented to God and my child. My child, by the way, quickly forgave me. It was beautiful. Just the way things ought to be. I had the perfect family at that moment.

I have discovered in my six years of parenting that I want a perfect family. Understand what I am saying. I want to be holy and perfect as God is holy and perfect. I don’t want to be perfect and holy in the same manner God is. God is infinitely holy and perfect. His perfection cannot be marred by sin. His holiness is all purity. But God wants us to be perfect not in any hypothetical way. That would be cruel. He wants us to be perfect like fallen human beings. He wants us to be perfect united to His Perfect Son, Jesus Christ. He wants us to be perfect by admitting our imperfection and our endless excuses to be something or expect something of our families that not even God expects.

Over the years I have seen perfect families. By that I mean I have seen fathers and mothers repent biblically and consistently. I have seen fathers seeking the heart of their children. It has been wonderful. The perfect family has laundry on their couches, dishes to be cleaned, but joyful voices around the house- voices that frighten God’s enemies. You cannot manipulate the joy of children. When there is unresolved discord in the home, we know. Trust me, we know. But when there is confession and consistent love they laugh. And that is perfection.

A counselee asked me jokingly recently, “What must I do to be saved?” I said without hesitation: be perfect. I went on to explain what that meant. To be perfect is not the state of knosis. It is no secret knowledge. In fact, it’s quite simple. It’s being open about your inadequacies and striving by the Spirit of God to be holy.

I know your world is not shattered by such propositions, but I hope it is an affirmation that parenting is hard and no amount of abstract theology will do. There is a lot of work to be done. This is not the place to do it, except to make the poiint that you can have the perfect family. Just admit often your imperfections. Don’t set up a standard for your children that is higher than what you would expect for yourself. And after all of that: thank Jesus. He is the author and perfector of our faith.

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Children and Worship: Fit and Qualified

Children in worship is an important theme in sacred scriptures. Children are an assumed part of the covenant worship of God.  a Their absence in worship would be a form of re-building the walls of partition. The wall erected to keep people out was torn down to bring people in. The absence of children in worship service revives the old cursed wall (Gal. 3:28).

The Christian faith has always been genealogical. It has always been about blood. Both major testaments function with this hermeneutical principle. But there is a fine qualification to keep in mind. This genealogy traces back to the first church formed in the Garden of Eden. The Church, which began in seed form, and which became pentecostalized b in Acts two, is a true family. Her blood is divine. Jesus bled for her and the Spirit bled drops of fire into that Church, and from that blood formed one holy, catholic, and apostolic body. This newly formed community comes together as one when she worships. She ceases to be a collection of families, but one family. She receives a new identity.

Children enter into this body through the same door that everyone else enters through: baptism. In baptism, children receive the ritualized mark of the Spirit. The Spirit bleeds red drops of fire on her head and empowers the infant to grow in grace and truth. The child is then educated in the ethics of Yahweh (Deut. 6). He shares the same heritage (Ps. 127-128) and the same blood (Acts 2). He becomes a qualified member of this new creation. He does not wait to be qualified, but becomes qualified through fire. Pentecost, then, is the coming together of water and fire.

Children become a necessary furniture piece in the new house of God. She is a little temple joined with many temples forming one holy temple wherein the Spirit dwells. She becomes a warrior; a warrior who depends heavily on more experienced warriors, but a warrior nevertheless. She is ready to follow in the train of the apostles without ever being able to utter her first word. God, the Spirit, gives her speech. God makes the dumb to speak, and He makes babes to cry out (Ps. 8). God’s noble army of men and boys, matron and maid is not composed of polished servants, but of servants that are being polished by the grace of the gospel in the community of faith.

Why children in worship? Because little pebbles become great stones. Because little seeds become great trees. Because little voices still frighten the enemies of God. God is perfectly capable of translating any language in the world. But when he translates the language of nursing infants into praise, He says, “this is very good.”

  1. One might even say assumed furniture in the household structure  (back)
  2. Spirit-sealed  (back)
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James Jordan on Paedocommunion

Brian Moats went through the trouble of transcribing this long quote from James Jordan’s lectures on paedocommunion (well worth the read):

“”Think back to the garden. Adam and Eve…this time they don’t sin. They have a child. Does the child grow up knowing the Lord? Yes. The child, from the womb, is bonded in. Bonded to the mother and to God, just like John the Baptist who leaped for joy in the womb when he encountered Jesus. John as a fetus encounters Jesus as a fetus, and John LEAPS for joy….that’s a response of faith. People say, “do you believe children can have faith,” and I say, “Man I believe a FETUS can have faith!.” John the Baptist had faith in the womb. Now, I don’t know how much intellectual content it had, but he recognized Jesus. His heart had faith.

…back to Adam and Eve. The children would have grown up naturally knowing the Lord. They wouldn’t have to make a decision. Now, as they grow older they become more self-conscious in that relationship. Sin is what destroys this whole pattern of life…these bonds. If salvation means anything, if we are Trinitarian in our view, then I submit that to mean that these bonds [of father and son,community] are restored.
Our children do grow up knowing the Lord. Now, is that because we are MADE righteous and so our children are conceived without sin. NO. They are conceived in iniquity. They are born in sin, they are born dead. But the pattern of redemption follows the pattern of creation, and God baptizes our children and puts them in a relationship with himself. They may grow up to be an Esau and they may break this, but they start out inside by baptism. We don’t baptize our children because we presume they are regenerate. We baptize our children because we presume they are unregenerate… baptism is our claiming the promise.

Salvation, by implication, restores these relationships. It’s not just an individual thing. The Holy Spirit comes and we would expect then that God would put our children into a relationship with Himself just as if Adam and Eve had not sinned their children would have grown up in a relationship with God. And that’s what we find, of course. Have you ever known 4-6 year old children in Christian families who didn’t believe? If the parents went to church and brought their children along? And prayed [and discipled them]? Have you ever known small children who don’t believe? No. They do! They may get to be 13 or 14 [etc] and rebel, but when they are young they receive the faith of their parents. That’s God’s way. If God didn’t want it that way he wouldn’t have caused us to come into the world as little kids. There is nothing wrong with that [being a kid]. We think, somehow or other, there’s something wrong with that…for a child to believe what his parents tell him. That’s not wrong, that’s God’s way! If God didn’t want it that way children could pop into the world at the age of 20 who could make his own decision. Think about this. God’s way is for children to start out believing what their parents say, and then then begin to get to the point where they move away from their parents by degrees. First of all, there are terrible two’s where the child moves a little bit away. Then there’s terrible five’s, then there’s adolescence, and then eventually the child is out of the home. And each one of these defines a new stage and a new relationship with the parent. These stages are real. At each stage the child relates less to the father and the mother and more directly to God. That’s what we want. Children relate to God as Father. When they reach adolescence they begin to relate to God as husband. And that’s why they get involved in a passionate need to have a relationship with God the son that is like a spouse, for the same kinds of reason that they start to look for someone of the opposite sex. God puts them in a stage of life where they want a complementary relationship. Before that time they relate to God as a Father, they just climb into his lap. That’s not wrong. It’s just a different stage of life.”

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Children and Worship

Children in worship is an important theme in sacred scriptures. Children are an assumed part of the covenant worship of God.  a Their absence in worship would be a form of re-building the walls of partition. The wall erected to keep people out was torn down to bring people in. The absence of children in worship service revives the old cursed wall (Gal. 3:28).

The Christian faith has always been genealogical. It has always been about blood. Both major testaments function with this hermeneutical principle. But there is a fine qualification to keep in mind. This genealogy traces back to the first church formed in the Garden of Eden. The Church, which began in seed form, and which became pentecostalized b in Acts two, is a true family. Her blood is divine. Jesus bled for her and the Spirit bled drops of fire into that Church, and from that blood formed one holy, catholic, and apostolic body. This newly formed community comes together as one when she worships. She ceases to be a collection of families, but one family. She receives a new identity.

Children enter into this body through the same door that everyone else enters through: baptism. In baptism, children receive the ritualized mark of the Spirit. The Spirit bleeds red drops of fire on her head and empowers the infant to grow in grace and truth. The child is then educated in the ethics of Yahweh (Deut. 6). He shares the same heritage (Ps. 127-128) and the same blood (Acts 2). He becomes a qualified member of this new creation. He does not wait to be qualified, but becomes qualified through fire. Pentecost, then, is the coming together of water and fire.

Children become a necessary furniture piece in the new house of God. She is a little temple joined with many temples forming one holy temple wherein the Spirit dwells. She becomes a warrior; a warrior who depends heavily on more experienced warriors, but a warrior nevertheless. She is ready to follow in the train of the apostles without ever being able to utter her first word. God, the Spirit, gives her speech. God makes the dumb to speak, and He makes babes to cry out (Ps. 8). God’s noble army of men and boys, matron and maid is not composed of polished servants, but of servants that are being polished by the grace of the gospel in the community of faith.

Why children in worship? Because little pebbles become great stones. Because little seeds become great trees. Because little voices still frighten the enemies of God. God is perfectly capable of translating any language in the world. But when he translates the language of nursing infants into praise, He says, “this is very good.”

  1. One might even say assumed furniture in the household structure  (back)
  2. Spirit-sealed  (back)
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An Exhortation for Mother’s Day

Grace, Mercy, and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

We cannot begin to think of mothers without speaking of our first mother, Eve. Eve was given the task of beautifying Eden. Her duty was to make Eden a place where God would dwell forever. The first task of a mother is to consider her actions in light of the future. In other words, in what ways am I preparing my home, my labors, and my offspring to exalt the name of Yahweh? The problem of Genesis 3 can be defined as a problem of a poor eschatology. The first lesson mothers need to understand is that the future matters. This is why mothers are called to live in such a way that influences her children and her children’s children.

On this Mother’s Day, Children must bless their mothers! Husbands must praise their wives! A good queen beautifies the home, and makes the king look respectable and honorable in his kingdom, and at the gates of the city. A good queen makes the name of Yahweh known in her garden. A good queen awakens to hear her children call her blessed!

As mothers get older and gain more and more biblical wisdom, they become wise matriarchs in communities. People begin to say: “Go to her. Seek her counsel.” But this does not come easily. Mothers need to be good theologians. They need the rhythm of resurrection to grow in wisdom. They need to be constantly reminded that God’s grace is strengthening and building them up in their darkest moments; when they are overwhelmed by their duties. Mothers as a New Eve need to embrace the resurrection as a model for life. They need to so cherish the empty tomb that they realize that their perspective on life now and the future is shaped by it.

Christian mothers in one way set the rhythm for the rest of the world. C.S. Lewis put it this way:

“To be a mother is a woman’s greatest vocation in life.  She is a partner with God.  No being has a position of such power and influence.  She holds in her hands the destiny of nations, for to her comes the responsibility and opportunity of molding the nation’s citizens.”

Mothers, do not ever allow someone to say that your role is not valued. You are co-heirs of grace. Your children are arrows that pierce the kingdoms of darkness, because you trained them to be great warriors. For every diaper you change, for every alphabet letter you teach, for every kiss, for every song, for every meal you make, for every joy you instill in your children and others in your community, therein is the testimony of God’s grace in the world. So on this day,

To those who gave birth this year to their first child—we celebrate with you

To those who lost a child this year – we mourn with you

To those who are in the trenches with little ones every day and wear the badge of food stains – we appreciate you

To those who experienced loss this year through miscarriage, failed adoptions, or running away—we mourn with you

To those who walk the hard path of infertility, we walk with you.

To those who are foster moms, mentor moms, and spiritual moms – we need you

To those who have disappointment, heart ache, and distance with your children – we sit with you

To those who lost their mothers this year – we grieve with you

To those who will have emptier nests in the upcoming year – we grieve and rejoice with you

And to those who are pregnant with new life, we anticipate with you.[1]

Moms, you are God’s gift to the Church, and to your families. Be encouraged in your calling. We need your wisdom, and the world needs it also. Happy Mother’s Day! And may the God of all peace sustain and nourish you with His grace now and forever. Amen.

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Bring Out the Champagne! The Party Has Just Begun!

Easter is gone, right? Actually Easter has just begun! The Easter Season lasts for 50 days. It is glorified in the PENT-ecost season. According to the Christian Calendar, Easter lasts until May 19th (Pentecost Sunday). But didn’t we spend ourselves bodily and spiritually this past Lord’s Day? If that’s the case, stir yourselves unto good works. The party has just begun!

We–who are liturgically minded–tend to carefully attend to the Lenten and Advent Calendar, but yet we forget that apart from the Resurrection Lent and Advent would not make any sense. After all, what are we expecting? A virgin birth to a son who would simply die at the age of 33? What are we expecting? A perpetually closed tomb? A sight for annual pilgrimages to Israel?

I am suggesting we need to stock up in our champagne bottles. Every Sunday meal needs to start with the popping of a champagne bottle. “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! POP! “Children, that’s the sound of victory!”

For every day of Easter, set aside a little gift for your little ones or your spouse. We set 100 Easter eggs aside for our two oldest children and let them open them up each day. Other traditions can be added, of course. We indulge in Easter hymnody and Psalmnody.  Easter is no time to get back to business as usual, it’s time to elevate the party spirit.

With that in mind, here are a few suggestions for these next 46 days:

First, for evening family readings, meditate specifically on the Resurrection account and the post-resurrection accounts. Digest every detail of the gospels, and also allow St. Paul to add his resurrection theology in I Corinthians 15.

Second, teach one another the art of hope. We live in a hopeless culture. We walk around with little enthusiasm for what God is doing in our midst. We also don’t believe that God is changing us and conforming us to the image of His son. We need to–especially in this season–to rejoice more with those who rejoice and encourage more those who weep with the hope granted to us in the Resurrection of our Messiah.

Third, invest in changing your community. Ask your pastor in what ways can you be more fruitful in your service to the congregation. Consider also your neighbors. Do you know them? If you do, how many have been in your homes for a meal or a drink, or simply to talk?

Fourth, play Easter music in your home and in the office. Here are some selections of great CDs or MP3’s.

Finally, avoid the introspective rituals that are so prevalent in our Christian culture. Do not allow doubts to overtake you. Think of your Triune baptism. Trust in Christ fervently. Allow the Covenant of Grace to shape your identity. The resurrection of Jesus was the confirmation that those in Christ are made for glory. Look to Jesus and serve Jesus by serving others. By doing so, you will not grow weary in doing well, and you will learn to party beside the empty tomb.

Christ is Risen!

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Children in Worship

Two fellow pastors have contributed to this important discussion. Pastor Rob Hadding writes:

One would be hard pressed to find examples in the Bible of where parents are instructed to exclude children from worship or the feasts. In fact, there are many places where the Bible explicitly instructs the people of God on how to include them. But, and this is the root of the matter, it is not our practice in American Evangelical culture to look to the Bible to see how we ought to be doing things. Rather, we look to the culture, asking the world for its wisdom. Where is our biblical theology of children? Where is our biblical theology of family? Where is our biblical theology of worship?

Pastor Toby Sumpter also touches on this in his piece, and concludes:

All I mean is that God designed worship to include other people and especially other little people, children. Real worship includes those people next to us, in the row behind us, and in front of us. It’s certainly true that without discipline or teaching, they can become distractions, but the fact that they are there, needing attention, smiling, waving, drawing pictures, and doing their own best to worship is glorious and nothing to be regretted or despised. And you, parents, if you are holding their hands and lifting your hearts to the Lord, then your worship is accepted. You are received, loved, rejoiced over by your Father in Heaven. You are worshiping, really worshiping.

It is time that we restore our little children to worship! They have been exiled long enough!

{For a more extended article on this topic, see Pastor Randy Booth’s Little Children and the Worship of God}