The Church and It's Famlies

[Richard OFfill]

The world church has called for revival and reformation. As I was reviewing the seven points of the call to revival and reformation as they were voted at the Fall Council in 2010, I couldn

[GraceVessel]

I agree with this assessment Pastor.  Quality time with Jesus in a family setting, actual contact time with your wife and kids, including time spent in church... this builds a mental and  spiritual fabric that can be a needed hedge and create and maintain stability for obtaining strength.

The tenor of your words suggests that we have the cart before the horse.  Specifically we are hyper focused on "information" and not "living the Christian life" in a family context.
I know my background and family is YIKES when I look back on it.. how in the world did I ever get this far... but for the grace of God.  Just imagine if we had families and fellowship where angels long to linger... where a thankful heart and mind... created and maintain a fragrance of good thoughts and intentions...

Doesnt the devil steal this away from us.. and we wake up... thinking wow... he sure made hay with my day today... it's so easy to forget who we belong to.

with kind regards,

Gracevessel

[Richard OFfill]

GraceVessel

Speaking of being intellectual  --I go the the gym three times a week. Believe it our not my trainer is 86 years old. I am not sure but I think he is a Baptist. I am amazed by his experience with the Lord. It is a thrill to hear his testimony. I don't think I know how to share a testimony like he does. I love Jesus, there is no doubt about that. But I don't know how to express it in a real personal way like he does.

I have wondered if some of us, I for one, thinks that if we make Jesus the center of our personal lives and homes it will mean that our Adventist lifestyle will collapse. My youngest son, he is 45 and for the time being, out of the church, reminded me last week how as a little boy he would coming crying into the bedroom and night  afraid of the close of probation.

It is hard to bring our families to Jesus when we are scared out of our wits.  In his case it must have been what I was teaching him.

But not to worry. There's hope for us   

[Soli Deo Gloria]

GraceVessel

Speaking of being intellectual  --I go the the gym three times a week. Believe it our not my trainer is 86 years old. I am not sure but I think he is a Baptist. I am amazed by his experience with the Lord. It is a thrill to hear his testimony. I don't think I know how to share a testimony like he does. I love Jesus, there is no doubt about that. But I don't know how to express it in a real personal way like he does.

I have wondered if some of us, I for one, thinks that if we make Jesus the center of our personal lives and homes it will mean that our Adventist lifestyle will collapse. My youngest son, he is 45 and for the time being, out of the church, reminded me last week how as a little boy he would coming crying into the bedroom and night  afraid of the close of probation.

It is hard to bring our families to Jesus when we are scared out of our wits.  In his case it must have been what I was teaching him.

But not to worry. There's hope for us.

This is so true Pastor. I remember in our church and school growing up Adventist, there was a lot of emphasis on Fernando Chaij's book on the last day events. We had to memorize details such as "would the death decree to kill all Sabbath keepers go out before or after the close of probation"?

Then it seemed like there was always leaders in our church who would find every possible legislation about Sunday laws and put the fear into us that the National Sunday law was about to happen anytime.

There was a fear based mentality with all of this, just as you relate with your son.

But the teaching of the New Testament clearly teaches that we don't have to live in fear.

The book of Revelation is written in figurative language.

 But just go to the same writer John's gospel (which by most scholarly accounts was written AFTER THE BOOK OF REVELATION.

You don't find a fear based message in the gospel of John.

Jesus says that the central message of Christianity is His agape love.

Betty quoted from this passage very recently on her thread.

John 13:34,35:
34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

 35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

John 10: 27-30

27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:

 28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

 29My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.

 30 I and my Father are one.
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Perfect love casts out fear

Romans 8:15-17

 15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

 16The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

 17And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.
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Stan

[K7]

part 1: I grew up a SDA preacher's kid... of an SDA preacher's kid. My father and mother always talked about end times with a large dose of the love of God. The priviledge of living in this time. The promises of His watch care, the amazing stories of God delivering His people or not, but no matter what,  we can trust God. The message was if God took care of you yesterday, and He's taking care of you now, you can trust He'll keep taking care of you tomorrow - whatever the challenges or tirals.  What had the damaging effect was that the enemy likes to divide to conquer... I didn't spend much time with my parents during the pivitol teen years (away at academy, because at least we'd be around other SDA young people), so we missed discussing my fears, doubts, and insecurities that the enemy plagued me with. When I was home, they were really busy and I didn't know I was messed up and developing unBiblical fears/beliefs.  It was always divide, divide, divide.  

Church as is practiced in most places divides the family so they don't have time to come together and learn what's going on in each others heart/head.  They don't study the Bible together.  As soon as you walk through the front doors of a typical SDA church, everyone is whisked away to their age appropriate class, with seminars, groups, etc. all ministering to a select little group.  Not that there is never an appropriate time and place to narrow your audience, but on a weekly basis, families aren't taught how to worship and study together as families.  Every age has their own quarterly, really? I believe, from experience and observation, that it is especially important for young people to study with more mature Christians, so their world view is a balanced Biblical one.  We basically teach by practice that parents/family have nothing to gain from one another after about age 3-4... that someone "more qualified" should teach your child... that is not a Biblical practice.  (see Deuteronomy 6)

[K7]

Part 2: What has worked well with many churches we know, both SDA and other denominations, is to have FAMILY Sabbath (Sunday) School.  It's fascinating, lively, engaging, everyone studies from the same quarterly - or just reads the Bible through Chronologically, Spirit of Prophecy books, etc.  Everyone is memorizing the same Scriptures together as families.  The opportunities to be out of touch with your young people is greatly reduced and the young people have an amazing knack for keeping the older people true to their words - it's called accountability.  Men get opportunities to practice Biblical leadership by rotating the class leadership role, while engaging their families to help with different parts of the program.    

Instead of "youth group" you have family group activities, (for an eye opening article written by a young person of another denomination, google search the article:  "Should Youth Group?")  thus avoiding all the pitfalls of the young people supervised and instructed by someone typically only a few years older than themselves, often not yet a mature Christian themselves as defined by Scripture. It avoids the young person going to the youth leader or youth pastor for their counsel - instead of following the Scripture chain of command, and going to your parents.  With a family focus at church, you are able to rebuild the foundation of the church, people are attracted to all the happy families and they want to know more.

A family focused church has all seminars run by families, each family working as a team.  Instead of dad doing 2-3 programs, mom doing another  2-3 programs and the young people involved in 5-6 completely different programs... and no one seeing each other in the family for weeks and months at a time!  They choose as a family what interests them, what has helped them, and the family leads a seminar/activity in that - could be health, could be music, could be prophecy, nursing homes, door to door work, relationships, etc.  Maybe they get a couple other families to help them.   There is now far fewer issues with proper supervision, strange doctrines sneaking in, hearts being turned against one another, alliances being built between strangers, families growing apart, etc.  Because we have the same goals, we have the similar interests, we're working together, praying together for a common thing.  We have more time to spend together.  Our Friday nights and Sabbaths are spent focused on common ground.

It's hard to bring our families to Jesus when we're scared, but we often don't have a clue anyone is scared, or to what extent, because we're not spending time together.  Don't give me that "Quality Time" argument either, that is garbage.  If you doubt me, try using that argument with your boss!  "But sir, I spent 15 minutes of quality time at work today, so I deserve being paid for the full 8 hours!"  We know that's junk, but we hear it all the time when it comes to parents trying to excuse the fact they don't spend time, just plain QUANTITY of time, with their young people.   Oh, there IS hope, but it's going to involve spending more time together - think gardening.  You can have the "Quality Time" garden or the "Quantity Time" garden, don't try to argue with me - 'cause you know they don't look or produce the same!!!

[Raven]

Church as is practiced in most places divides the family so they don't have time to come together and learn what's going on in each others heart/head.  They don't study the Bible together.  As soon as you walk through the front doors of a typical SDA church, everyone is whisked away to their age appropriate class, with seminars, groups, etc. all ministering to a select little group.  Not that there is never an appropriate time and place to narrow your audience, but on a weekly basis, families aren't taught how to worship and study together as families.  Every age has their own quarterly, really? I believe, from experience and observation, that it is especially important for young people to study with more mature Christians, so their world view is a balanced Biblical one.  We basically teach by practice that parents/family have nothing to gain from one another after about age 3-4... that someone "more qualified" should teach your child... that is not a Biblical practice.  (see Deuteronomy 6)

I believe you're correct, K7.  There needs to be a balance, and we haven't done a very good job of achieving it.  In one respect smaller churches may have an advantage in this area.  There may not be enough kids to have separate classes, or there may not be anyone to teach a particular age group.  Our church is small, and there is one class for kids from 0-whatever; and at times the older kids assist the younger ones.  There were times when my kids were the only kids.  In their early teens they started coming upstairs to the adult SS class, and have been there ever since.  While we need to keep the gospel simple enough for the age group we are addressing, we don't need to "dumb it down."  Kids are not dumb; they catch on quickly, and they can ask questions.  If they are not kept isolated form adults most of the time, they are not so likely to be intimidated when put into a situation where there are mostly adults.

[Richard OFfill]

K7 I agree.

This week end I was taking with a conference youth director. I told him that at times it seems to me that the way we deal with youth is as if the 18 year old  is going to be 18 all their lives. The marketing people in the culture has broken into pieces what God intended be a continuum.

Some years ago I heard someone say that we can speak about spiritual concepts with children who may understand better than adults inasmuch as they don't have the adult 'baggage' to contend with.