Strong Families

Last Sunday’s message - Family Ministry Begins in the Home - from the book of Deuteronomy was one of the most important I have ever taught at PCC.  I wish I had known those things twenty years ago.  They would have reshaped my entire ministry.

I’m rethinking a lot of things nowadays; particularly the way we do ministry.  I've seen too many people who have been in churches for years – but later defect.  Most alarming is the number of young people who defect.  I think this is caused by a spiritual vacuum in the home; and it's a vacuum that the organized church cannot fill, no matter how many ministries it offers.

God’s will is that there be a conscious, consistent, transfer of His truth from the older to the younger in the family.  If there is a mistake that Christian parents make, it’s thinking our children automatically capture our zeal for Christ.  Quite the contrary; the only thing automatic is that our children are inclined towards sin.  If there is going to be a capturing of their heart for God, there needs to be a concerted effort in the home.  That means Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and so on in the cycle of living.

Home is where life makes up its mind.

Society has made Christianity a “Sunday religion.”  Even worse, professing Christians have bought into this notion.  God is almost non-existent in their lives or in the home until Sunday.  But true-to-life Christianity is designed for Tuesday afternoon just as beautifully as Saturday morning.  You don’t have to put on a collar.  You don’t have to wear a coat and tie.  You don’t even have to dress up for it.  It fits in after a meal as well as before bedtime.  That’s what makes “teaching in the home” so authentic.

There is no school or church program that families can attend to earn a degree in family strength.  It doesn’t work like that.  Families become strong, not because they have “Sunday religion”, but because they pay the price to be different…. because they include Biblical truth in everyday life... and because they conduct their relationships according to God’s knowledge.

By wisdom a house is built,

And by understanding it is established;

And by knowledge the rooms are filled

With all precious and pleasant riches

(Proverbs 24:3-4)