The Missing Piece-Part 3

The Bible tells us we are in the world but we are not of the world. The Bible also tells us to come out of the world and be separate yet we are told to be salt and light to the world. Over the years I have studied families and the different way they parent. I’ve also studied churches and the different way they do church. To me the families and churches who have the greatest success are the ones who have teamed together to join their forces to develop in individuals a biblical view of how to live 24/7.  I have had the wonderful honor of raising two wonderful daughters. They are both successful not only in business but also in their spiritual walk. (One of them is one of the authors of this book,talk about a blessing.) My girls are as different as night and day, if I had not been in the delivery room with both of them I would not believe they were kin. I have had to discipline them differently, I have to communicate and instruct them differently. But when it comes down to making choices and how to live it was the same for them as it was for their mother and I and that was what does the Bible say?

            There are lots of voices that speak into our lives that challenge a biblical world view. As a parent and as a pastor I cannot block out every voice that speaks to my family and to my congregation nor should I but I have spent my life pointing out that God’s word contains truth and the truth of the Word is what will set us free. God’s word is the filter we should view the world through! Years ago I learned that all a stronghold is believing wrong information. When we take captive every thought and make it obedient to the word of God it produces right thinking that creates right actions. Our actions come from our thinking that’s why we have to be intentional about the voices we listen to and the actions we do, regardless of our age. When my children were small we limited the voices and the “traditions we planted in our children.” Just because a movie or TV show was animated or geared for children didn’t mean we allowed our children to feed on it. We have never lied to our children. We never told them there was a tooth fairy, Daddy bought their teeth. We never told them their Christmas presents came from the north pole or where made by elves. We told them the stories as stories not as truth. The truth was their presents came from Mom and Dad with love bought with money Father God provided to us because He loves His kids and wants us to love ours. One of the reasons my children believed me about Jesus is because we have never lied to them. When I told them about the hurt and pain from living contrary to God’s word they believed me, didn’t need to experience the pain themselves they learned from my mistakes and believed me, because I’ve always told them the truth. I learned when I first started working with kids always keep your promises to them. I never made a promise in children’s church that I couldn’t keep, if I did that at church I needed to do that at home. I never promised I would be at everything I told my girls I would try and I was honest if there was a possibility that I could not be there. I’m not saying I’ve never disappointed my children I have many times but I’ve told them the truth about life and tried to model what I was asking them to do and believe. 

The Missing Piece-Part 2

Just like the church needs a Biblical vision for reaching children so does the family. Have you ever asked God for what He wants for your family? I realized that God designed the family to put His word into future generations. If you aim at nothing you’ll hit it every time. So if God gives us the desires of your hear what is your desire and goals for your children? For me I wanted our family to be close. I wanted them to love the Lord with all their heart and love the word. In fact I wanted them to love the Bible so much that it was what they based every choice in their life on.  What about you what’s on your list? That a break from your reading and start a list. Then ask God if your list is his list? Remember if you aim at nothing you’ll hit it every time.

            The Bible is the benchmark of how we should view the world and how we live. My goal for my children as well as every child I have the opportunity to teach and pastor is for them to grow up to become a doer of the word. I realized early in my ministry that children couldn’t live what they couldn’t remember and they couldn’t remember what they didn’t understand. It changed the way I taught, the methods I used and how visual and simple I needed to communicate but most of all they needed a model or example. Show is needed along with tell! This is what Deut. 6 is all about for a parent to take every available minute they have with their children and make them count to put a love for the Lord and His word. Parents much be as intentional and visual as pastors or teachers. Imagine if we all worked together. The Church and the family one in purpose.

            Over these past thirty plus years of working with children I’ve seen thousands of kids come up through my ministry. I am so blessed to have scores of “Timothy’s” in full time ministry who have been in my children’s church. I have gotten a real kick out of catching up with kids on facebook who have been a part of previous children’s ministries I have had the privilege of leading. But the sad spot within my heart is when I think about the kids who are not living for Christ and who are not walking out the goal to become a doer of the word. The problem is not just in church, it’s also in the home! So many kids who were not only raised in the church they were also raised in Christian homes, by Christian parents, listening to Christian music, watching Christian videos, reading Christian books, hanging around with Christian friends who did the same things are not following Christ today. What happen? I believe that the problem lies within the church and the family having two views of life rather than one Bible based world view.

The Missing Piece

I had no idea that saying yes to the command “Get your guitar and your Bible and go back to Children’s Church” from my Pastor in 1977 would change my life forever. Not only has it changed me as a person and a Christ follower, it’s changed me as a husband, a father, an employee, a minister and has changed the lens I view everything through. It began a journey that at fifty-six years young and counting I’m still on, “to know God and love His word and help sons and daughters do the same.”  I’ve told this story for years but it bears repeating for the readers who have never heard it. I had been working with teenagers for the past 3 years serving in churches and playing in a Christian rock and roll band when my pastor came looking for me and told me to go cover children’s church for the teacher who called in last minute and informed him that she was not coming back. I wanted to help my pastor so I did what he had said. I grabbed my guitar and Bible and I went back to the old fellowship hall with seven kids. “How hard could this be?” I thought. The answer came just minutes into the hour and a half that turned into a month all in one day. It was the hardest thing I had ever done on short notice. I was not prepared and the kids could smell the fresh blood just like a group of sharks. They ate me up! I went to find my pastor as soon as the last child had been picked up and I wanted to know how long I was going to have to do this. I’ll never forget Brother Wilson’s reply to me, “You’ll need to do it until God raises up someone with a vision.” Immediately I began to pray, “Lord, give someone a vision for children’s ministry! Open their eyes Lord, and let them see the importance of reaching and teaching kids from your viewpoint! After praying that prayer and working with the children over the next several weeks I soon realized I was the someone that Jesus had given the vision to. How did I come to this realization? I had begun to see children’s ministry from a different viewpoint a Biblical view point. For the first time ever as a young Christ follower I began to see that children and the importance of ministering to them was in the Bible. I’ve tried to do other things in ministry but that vision, that view would not let me. I believe what’s missing from so many ministries and families is an understanding of life from a Biblical world view.

We Said No, To Ho Ho Ho! -Part 2

There are lots of voices that speak into our lives that challenge a biblical world view. As a parent and as a pastor I cannot block out every voice that speaks to my family and to my congregation nor should I but I have spent my life pointing out that God’s word contains truth and the truth of the Word is what will set us free. God’s word is the filter we should view the world through! Years ago I learned that all a stronghold is believing wrong information. When we take captive every thought and make it obedient to the word of God it produces right thinking that creates right actions. Our actions come from our thinking that’s why we have to be intentional about the voices we listen to and the actions we do, regardless of our age. When my children were small we limited the voices and the “traditions we planted in our children.” Just because a movie or TV show was animated or geared for children didn’t mean we allowed our children to feed on it.”

This led us to the big question what were we going to do about mythical traditions?

Julie and I both grew up in Christian households. Both of our families attended church on a regular basis. Our parents also told us both about the tooth fairy, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. We also both grew up watching all the disney “fairytale movies and reading traditional children’s books. When Julie and I found out that our parents were really “Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the tooth fairy it affected us differently. Julie just kind of went along as long as her parents wanted to play the game. I felt betrayed. It also made me question was Jesus real too or did they make Him up too?

One thing Julie and I knew was we wanted to do whatever we could to help our kids know the difference between fiction and truth.

We decided to do something that might not have been popular but we felt it was what was right for us as a family. We chose to not tell them there was a tooth fairy, Daddy bought their teeth. Oh we still to this day give our kids Easter Baskets but they don’t come from Peter cottontail hopping down the bunny trail they come from Mom and Dad.

But the most controversial decision we ever made was to say say no to Ho Ho Ho!

We never told our girls their Christmas presents came from the north pole or that they where made by elves. We told them the stories as stories not as truth. The truth was their presents came from Mom and Dad with love bought with money Father God provided to us because He loves His kids and wants us to love ours. We told our children that Father God started the whole gift giving tradition by giving the first Christmas present His one and only son. I don’t think our girls could have been more excited about Christmas than they were growing up. They went to bed wondering what Mom and Dad were going to give them in the same way other kids were excited about presents from Santa. The funny thing that would happen was when adults would ask Yancy what Santa was going to bring her she would answer nothing. Those adults would look at use like we were the worst parents in the world. I’ll be honest with you at first I was guilty of being somewhat of a Santa basher. Some of you might have heard a song I wrote for an early Puppet Trax tape that said “Santa Claus never died for anybody’s sin and the Easter Bunny never rose again.” I remember walking through the mall around Christmas time and saw a mall Santa. I remember saying something about there he is the God of this world and I remember Yancy as a very little girl saying Dad it’s just a man in a suit like your gorilla suits. After that I just took a chill pill I had done what we wanted to do we had taught our girls the difference between truth and fantasy.

My kids loved Disney. They were big Snow White fans, Big Little Mermaid fans. They loved puppets all my full bodied costumes and clowns. They even have had their picture made with Santa. But more than anything my girls love Jesus. They love their parents and are very close to us. Although we are not perfect parents we have never told them a half truth, a white lie or fantasy story as a true story.

We Said No, To Ho Ho Ho!

Back in November of 1978, Julie and I began our lives together. It was a wonderful day, all the the kids in our children’s church were so excited about attending our wedding. I’ll never forget one little fellow name Zack asked us if he could go on our “Moon ride” with us. I told him he couldn’t and one day he would have his own “Moon ride.” (He thought when his parents said we were going on a honeymoon they said we were going on a moon ride) I had no idea all of the work involved in the two becoming one. You see although Julie and I both loved Jesus, our families, rock and roll and each other we soon found out we has come from two completely different parenting styles. As we began to talk about all of our differences the big desire of our hearts was to train our children based on God’s Word more than our own family and cultural traditions.

Several months ago I wrote an article here on my blog and in K! on “Developing A Biblical Word View in your Family” In that article I wrote:

“Just like the church needs a Biblical vision for reaching children so does the family. Have you ever asked God for what He wants for your family? I realized that God designed the family to put His word into future generations. If you aim at nothing you’ll hit it every time. So if God gives us the desires of your hear what is your desire and goals for your children? For me I wanted our family to be close. I wanted them to love the Lord with all their heart and love the word. In fact I wanted them to love the Bible so much that it was what they based every choice in their life on. “

Julie and I believed the Bible was and still is the benchmark of how we should view the world and how we live. The Bible tells us we are in the world but we are not of the world. The Bible also tells us to come out of the world and be separate yet we are told to be salt and light to the world. Over the years I have studied families and the different way they parent. I’ve also studied churches and the different way they do church. To me the families and churches who have the greatest success are the ones who have teamed together to join their forces to develop in individuals a biblical view of how to live 24/7.  I have had the wonderful honor of raising two wonderful daughters. They are both successful not only in business but also in their spiritual walk.  My girls are as different as night and day, if I had not been in the delivery room with both of them I would not believe they were kin. I have had to discipline them differently, I have to communicate and instruct them differently. But when it comes down to making choices and how to live it was the same for them as it was for their mother and I and that was what does the Bible say?