Family Driven Faith

by Voddie Baucham
I finally finished it, and while I wait for people to come take my beautiful entertainment center away (Peter wanted a new flat screen TV and sold 100 of his books to make it fit…needless to say there has been
TONS of rearranging and redecorating going on here)

So anyhow back to my book review! I LOVED this book. He was so honest about the culture, and how Christians fall short. He starts off mentioning how our culture has become anti-marriage and anti-child, as well as stating the verses that show that  God wants otherwise for us. He quotes that 70-88% of Christians teens abandon their faith by the 2nd year of college. Meaning American Christian parents are doing SOMETHING wrong.  He feels a lot of it is based on not teaching a Biblical world-view, and not being able to articulate our faith, let alone teach our children how to. He touched on how we are blinded by the culture’s view of love, instead of seeing true Biblical love (which is a CHOICE, an act of the WILL, not just emotion or feelings that come and go).
He says that  Moses saw the HOME as the principle delivery system for transmitting God’s truth from generation to generation (Deut 6:7)
Our culture has convinced us that the teaching should be passed on to "professionals". (Professional daycare providers, teachers, Sunday school teachers, youth group leaders). This was never God’s plan. His plan was for PARENTS to teach children in these areas. Our children must be brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4) and WE (the PARENTS) will be held accountable and responsible for these children which God has entrusted to US.
 I admit I glossed over the very end about keeping children with you in church. I completely agree, but  I have slacked. I used to keep them with me(except when I was teaching), and then I got pregnant and sent the boys to classes, and as much as  I had not planned on sending Abigail she’s been to the nursery 3 times now! I make the excuse that its just me and 3 of them, but it is laziness on my part. I’m not judging anyone who uses classes, but I do agree that it is more beneficial to worship as a family than to be separated by age to worship.
 I’ve also been convicted to make a bigger effort to do a family  devotion/worship every morning first thing. I often plan on doing it after the necessary chores are done, but those roll into more chores and it doesn’t get done. Nothing fancy, just review our memory verse and maybe talk about a couple verses of scripture. Starting our day with the Lord just makes such a difference, even on top of my own quiet time with the Lord I have before getting up. Its gets the family on the right page together.
I want to leave you with a quote:
Our homes must be filled with the aroma of love. Those who visit us should notice immediately that they have left the world of self serving, egocentric narcissism and have entered a safe harbor where people value and esteem others above themselves. Outsiders should enter our home and never want to leave….Christians in our culture must love better, more deeply and longer than the pagans around us do.
By the way I got this from the library, so you local readers I encourage you to borrow it too!