What do father's think?

This coming week's Message is mostly for Dads. Some of the questions given to us in an email to think about are the following:

Questions to Think About:
1) What do fathers think of when they hear the Gospel story?
2) Does God tell you what to do in life?
3) Is the Bible an instruction manual?

I wanted to respond to this personally, and thought I'd do it on the blog here. I have no idea what specifically will be talked about this weekend.

I have always struggled with almost no direct New Testament examples of fatherhood. There are implications of actions, but nothing like the Old Testament where we read about David and his sons or Abraham and his sons.

How in the world did Peter have a family, even a wife, and travel around the way he did? Did he feed and provide for them? How? Did he ever fight with his wife? About what?

I imagine it going something like this:

Peter: I need to travel up to the Antioch church for a meeting with the leaders there.

Petrina (since we don't know her name I'll be creative): Ok...um...well...we have this bill coming due (I know there were no bills, but work with me here). I guess I'll just go get full time work and put our children in daycare now at the local synagogue where they will be taught the law over Jesus.

Peter: But I gotta go to this gathering of the leaders...the Jewish Christians up there want to circumcise the whole bunch of Greek born servants of the church (what the word "deacons" means) and if they do that now in the middle of winter who's going to get all those locked in widow's the food and wood they need for heat?

Petrina: What about our table!? Our kids?!

Peter: I know, I know. I'll find some way to make some more money or bring home some fish to eat or sell.

Petrina: And you're gonna do that where on the road to Antioch! Water into wine...multiplying bread and fish...healing my mother...but are you gonna turn dirt into fish?

Peter: Look...If I don't get up there we'll see a bloody mess from those circumcisions at Ananias' house and at least days of miserable pain for the wrong reason! You don't know what that will do to those marriages! And you know Ananias' wife - a great hostess but a stickler for keeping things clean!

Petrina: If Jesus can let you heal the blind and lame and drop a blanket of potential unclean food in front of your face to eat, why won't he at least drop me a blanket of food to put on the table...kosher of course so we don't offend the neighbors.

Ok, so maybe that's just my situation! But where in the New Testament does it tell us how to be fathers and follow Jesus "at all cost"?

I mean, the best thing we might have for teaching about sex is Song of Solomon. I can hardly understand that or read it to my wife without blushing. What about a 8-10 year old (which is the age we have to start these days, if not earlier!)

But there are some great instructions in the Old Testament, that seem to apply.

I think the greatest ideas of teaching in Scripture, and the most difficult to actually do, is to teach your children alongside you as you do the work of God, the mission of God, together:

Deut 4:9 Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.

Deut 11:18 Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 19 Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 20 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates,

And though this doesn't apply to children, it's along the same lines of how to teach each other and the next generation:

Exodus 18:19 Listen now to me and I will give you some advice, and may God be with you. You must be the people's representative before God and bring their disputes to him. 20 Teach them the decrees and laws, and show them the way to live and the duties they are to perform. 21 But select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain—and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens.

So, practically, I'm wondering what it looks like to do things alongside my children.

Like, taking them to the shelter and serving food. Or, do they know about how we spend money? Tithe or not tithe? Do I come to church, spend church with them, and talk to them about what it all means, or do I just send them to some Sunday School program? Do I let them participate in my prayers?

What this seems to mean is that we should spend our lives with them, explain why we go to church, what we want from it, when it fails us, what Jesus' intention is...ideally, all this stuff we talk about as we do it.

Jesus loved kids and we do too. They are part of our community and we welcome them in our midst. More than anything, we hope your kids come away knowing they are loved and enjoyed. As you follow Jesus, they will follow you. We want them to notice and learn that you are devoted to learning from the Bible, to genuine worship, to prayer, to an honest walk with your Creator, and to a commitment to caring for others in the body of Christ and in your community. We do not believe it is the church's responsibility to teach the children what will be taught in the home. We will not try to replace you; it cannot be done. The story of your life will powerfully teach your kids and thus, as your children watch you, we want them to see your relationship with Jesus changing your life. That will be the best lesson they will ever receive. Our first goal is to equip you to lead them in both word and action to an understanding of the Good News of Jesus Christ.

The difficulty is often that these days I don't work alongside my children, nor do we in America. We leave the house to work, and then come back to the house. It used to be that they learned the same things as fathers and mothers to learn a trade. Now parents leave the house and spend the majority of their "awake" time away from the house. Kids in school, parent's are at work. When do our worlds intersect? Not much anymore.

It actually makes it a greater sacrifice to be with your children in our culture, because we have to sacrifice "me" time.

A friend once said to us that we should home school because if you send them to elementary school they will learn how to relate in the world primarily from other children. This isn't about home schooling, just making the note that our kids in America, from the age of 5 on, spend more time walking alongside their peers than they do their parents. And those peers, and probably our own children, spend more time in front of the TV learning about how to relate in the world than they do from adults around them, much less parents. The TV and media teach children, and the children teach each other.

I really have to be more intentional about doing things alongside my children. I'm not sure how to do that, but I want to keep my eyes open to it.

And I have to remind myself that watching TV together doesn't count!

I saw a mailing the other day and it had this family all smiling and sitting on each other's laps and laughing. It was an advertisement for a Dish! So, if I got a dish, we'd make a great family right?

It's funny how the world knows what we want, and uses what we want to sell us stuff that will do exactly the opposite of what we want.

I've got to keep myself attuned to what is being "sold" to me as easy ways to get what I want, but that will do just the opposite.

As a church we've got to be just as careful. It's easy for us to start up children's programs, theology, teaching, and other things that promise great things we really and truly want, but

it's often the simplicity of Scripture, and it's simple truths, that we need to humbly apply. And that is very difficult because to do that means we do have to deny our own time (like our TV programs), our own enjoyments (like my sports or my reading), our money (working a little less or going out less or not paying for TV, Internet, or other things), our desired standard of living, and ourselves.

I am guilty of not denying myself to be a father very well.

Again, I have to remember...it's not about making my children or my wife like me. It's about loving them whether they like me or not.

Boy, my family would be upset if I thought we needed to cancel the cable. Got to pray about that one!