The best advice I ever got about being a Dad

You know when you start having kids you get a lot of advice from people.  Some of it is bad.  Some of it is just tongue in cheek nonsense.  Some of it is actually pretty good.  The best advice I've ever got on parenting came from my Pastor at Riverland Hills Baptist Church Dr. Ed Carney.

Meeting in his office one day we got to discussing the subject of fatherhood.  Ed asked me "You know what your biggest job is as a Dad right?"  I paused for a second realizing I had never approached the idea of fatherhood with such a systematic thought process.  I knew a list of things Dad's should do...provide financially, protect his children, take them to church, be sure they get an education, etc...

Before I could answer Ed told me, "You have to be the Pastor in your home.  You see I'm only their Pastor one day a week for just a few hours.  Your family needs pastoral leadership every day, all the time.  That's you.  That's your job.  It's more important than anything else."

As soon as he said it, a light clicked on in my head.  I'd read the Bible.  I knew much of what it said about the husband being the head of the home, raising your children in the way they should go, not provoking your children to wrath, etc. but this simple word of wisdom put all of it into a new simple perspective to me.

My #1 job as a husband and father is to provide spiritual leadership.  That starts with making a commitment to raising them up within the community of church and modeling the Gospel of Christ in my life.   My kids know that church is important to Daddy.  But more than that, they know Monday through Saturday that God is the real boss in our home.  If you don't make that plain then you aren't really living the Gospel in front of them, you are just showing them how to be a hypocrite. 

Now you may say, "I don't know anything about being a Pastor.  How am I supposed to do that?"  Don't let that trouble you.  You may not know how, but if you humbly and sincerely submit yourself to the leadership of God, then He will show you how to lead your family.

I'll write some more this week about practical ways you can show practical, pastoral leadership in your home.

Answer I gave a friend about church

Been a while since I've posted, but it's a new year and I've got a lot to say...so here goes

A friend asked me on Facebook yesterday if one had to go to church to be a "true" believer in Christ. Here is the response I gave him.

I do not believe that one must go to church to receive salvation. Salvation comes from believing in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ and repenting of your sin. Nothing more is needed. Baptism, church attendance, giving tithes...none of these are required to go to heaven.

That said, I think it is entirely fair to think about what our response to God's undeserved and overwhelming grace through Christ should be. The Bible speaks to this as well. Christ said that those who love Him would keep His commandments. Similarly James wrote that faith without works is dead. In other words, if our faith is real and sincere, we will be motivated to obedience. If we believe that Jesus is who He says He is and that Christ did the things the Bible says He did, I can't imagine responding any other way.

Now, does the Bible speak to church attendance? Absolutely. See Hebrews 10:25 where Christians are told to meet together and encourage one another. I would also call attention to what Paul wrote in 1st Corinthians 12 analogizing the church to the body of Christ and explaining each part's dependence on the other. This makes sense as it is plain to see that a hand that is cut off from the rest of the body is of little use. The Bible also points out that Christ loves the church and analogizes the church to being Chirst's bride. Finally, and most persuasively to me, the Bible teaches that Christ Himself was a regular attender of church and if being a Christian is about being more like Christ, then there can be no greater example. See Luke 4:16 describing Christ's regular practice of attending church on the Sabbath.

So if you believe what the New Testament says about the way Christians should function together and you want to be like Jesus, then it is really hard to justify a careless attitude about attending church.