Encouraging Family Reformation

The biblical institutions of church and family in America are in need of reformation. Some say that we are in the period of greatest apostasy in 500 years. Less than one-half of one percent of adults ages 18 to 23 years have a biblical worldview. Only one-third of Christian parents say their religious faith is one of the most important influences on their parenting and only 27% of Protestant parents are very familiar with what the Bible has to say about parenting. It is clear that many Christian parents are no longer discipling their children in the faith. The result---SBC’s Council on Family Life reported that roughly 88 percent of evangelical children are leaving the church shortly after they graduate from high school. The problem is not only with the church and its program-oriented, marketing-driven growth philosophy, but also with parents, who have abdicated their role and responsibility in teaching, discipling, and nurturing their children in multigenerational faithfulness. The result is that the secular post-Christian culture has claimed the children and youth of America. When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do? (Psalm 11:3). We are encouraged by the fact that God is sovereign, Jesus Christ is Lord and His kingdom is forever. As we believe God's covenantal promise, our opportunity is great in working toward reformation of the family, the church, and the nations.

This blog links to a wide variety of writings on biblical issues regarding the family, biblical roles and relationships in the family, the church, education, and biblical worldview including ethics, apologetics, history, politics, and culture. The blog was created to encourage biblical family reformation through development of a clear family vision of multigenerational faithfulness. Our duties as parents include sharing the gospel with our children, discipling them in the faith (Deut 6:7), raising them in the fear, nuture, and admonition of the Lord (Prov 9:10; Eph 6:4), cultivating in them a biblical worldview (2 Cor 10:5), and providing them with the necessary tools to recognize and engage an increasingly humanistic, post-Christian culture while glorifying God.

June 14, 2009

Children's Worship

By James M. Boice

I don't do children's sermons. I know they are popular with parents and that they are a staple in the Sunday services of most evangelical churches. But I don't like them, and I don't do them. Let me explain why.

My first reason is that children's sermons distract people from the worship of God. They are meant to involve children in the worship service by offering something appropriate to their age. But the effect, whether intentional or not, is to focus the attention of the adults on the children, and that is not what we should be coming to church to do. We should be focusing on God. I find that when children are invited forward to hear some cute word from the minister, the adults perk up and begin to pay close attention to the children. They are amused. They laugh. It is a bright spot in the service. But it is not worship. Children's sermons sidetrack worship even if it has been going on previously, which often it has not. In practice children's sermons come dangerously close to idolatry since they invite worship of the fruit of our loins rather than the Lord.

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