Family Driven Faith

I bought the book Family Driven Faith by Voddie Baucham Jr.(click on the book to purchase from amazon.com) for my husband for Christmas. I read it in about three days. The whole time all I could do was exclaim over and over to my husband what a great book it was. This is a book about raising our sons and daughters in a way that other Christians scoff at. Recently on the way home from a retreat with some ladies from church I was nearly driven to tears. They shot down every thing I said about raising my children. When I said that our children would not participate in youth group you would have thought I said lets go drop our kids off the bridge. It was that explosive. This book said what I was trying to say in that car. If youth groups are such a great idea why are so many of our churched youth leaving the faith by the second year of college? I was in two separate youth groups growing up and I can almost count on one hand the number of kids still active from both of those groups. I can also tell you some wild stories about youth group and youth camp. Stories that should be shown on the late night pay per view channels. Of course if I shelter my children from "youth group" they will go wild when they are grown. Let me quote the good Mr. Baucham here, on page 18 of his book he is talking about getting the same reaction from people when they hear about his child rearing philosophy.
"Interestingly, though, none of the "wild ones" I remember from my college days were rookies. None of the went off the deep end into immorality after leading chaste lives at home. Most of them simply walked farther into the debauchery with which they were allowed to experiment early on. There is a larger issue at stake here. The question is not whether or not our children sin later in life. The question is, do we have a biblical obligation to train them before they leave home? Is there any biblical validity to the idea that Christian parents should allow their children to experiment with ungodliness?"
Read the last line again. "Is there any biblical validity to the idea that Christian parents should allow their children to experiment with ungodliness?"
That line almost knocked me over. What a great line. I could have so used it in the car a few weeks ago.
Hubby and I are now reading through the book together. We are still in the first chapter but tonight he looked at me and said,"Its almost like this guy has been in our room the last few weeks listening to us talk about this and ask these questions." YES, YES YES!!!
We have struggled so much with raising our children lately. I'm someone who looks at patterns. I look into other peoples lives to see what they are doing right and wrong. The one thing missing from some of my older lady friends lives as they reared their children was personal responsibility. They all thought that taking their children to church and being there every time the doors opened would protect them and give them the life sustaining faith that is needed. Most of these women only have about 50 to 25 percent of their children in church. (That averages out to about one or two depending on how many kids they had) They are also the ones who pat me on the hand and say, "Do your best now, but once they leave the nest they are gone." I have not been able to accept that. Yes, I know adult children make their own decisions. I know that its a war out there with satan. But I'm not going to just do my best. I'm going to fight with all I have. I tell my children that too. I tell them that satan wants them to listen to him and do what he wants instead of what God and mommy and daddy want. I also tell them that we are fighting for them. That we will not let satan just come in and take over. Mr. Bauchman has given us yet another tool.
He will be speaking with Doug Phillips in Branson in July. I am doing everything I can to get to that conference. If I get anywhere near the man I will shake his hand til the arm comes out of the socket.
Ya wanna know my favorite thing...he is a Southern Baptist. Yep! Someone from my denomination who actually preaches about multigenerational faithfulness and family integrated worship. It makes me want to weep! You see I can hand this book over to people in my church without any disclaimers. We know what the man's core belief system is. I know that should not be such a big deal, but in this Purpose Driven, Youth group oriented, entertain the children at all cost culture I am living in within my denomination it means a whole lot!
This book has given me encouragement as a parent. Yes, I will still have difficult questions to answer and skeptical people watching me raise my children. If one of them goes astray you can bet your bippy that I will hear about it. But what matters is eternity. If I don't do everything I can to usher them into the Lord's presence as mighty warriors I have failed. Of course 99 percent of that fight is face down on the floor crying out to Jesus. I know that. I understand that. But some of it comes from just day to day training of my children.
Mr. Bauchman, thank you for writing a book that spoke so deeply to where my husband and I are. We are swimming up stream, but every stroke is worth it. One day when we shoot our arrows from the nest fully equipped to face the spiritual battles before them we will bow our heads and thank God for his mercy and grace and for sending us encouragement through your words.
I wish I had time and space to really dwell on some insights from the book, but this will have to do ya. If you have the opportunity to check this book out or even add it to your library I would strongly suggest it.

Be Blessed!