How to be a Man at Home

Good thoughts here from Brian Howard.

A Theology of "Home"

Steve Timmis with a long, yet powerful article tracing the social conditions that have brought us to where we are today in terms of or notions of family and "home" and how the Biblical story fits into this.  These concepts are worthy of much reflection for the sake of church and mission.  His thesis:

Having tried to establish an historical perspective, let me state in fairly bold terms my thesis. The concepts of home and family are an important dimension of human identity, and there is something intrinsic to being human that craves for a context of refuge in which individuals have identity, and are accepted and secure. But the purpose of such 'units' is to offer a 'home' to the "strangers and aliens", and to face the world with an open face and welcoming arms.

Read the whole thing.  

Books by Steve Timmis here.

"What happens to a country when its young people stop having sex? Japan is finding out…"

There is wisdom in the command to "be fruitful and multiply."  It blesses culture.  When you go the other way huge problems can and will ensue.  Japan is starting to feel the consequences of a culture that doesn't embrace a biblical doctrine of creation.

(There is a bit of crassness in the link article.)

A Word For Busy Moms

A great word here from John Piper.

Longing For The Return of Daddy

There are a lot of "troops that surprise their families" coming home type videos out there.  This one by ESPN is quite well done.  Get the Kleenex.

I think Christians can resonate with these emotions at a profoundly deep level.  There is an eschatological longing that we tap into when we watch videos like this.  Go for it.  Cry a bit.  It's good for you.

The Story of the Long Brothers

God's Goodness in the Deepest Pain

Ben Peays:

In this powerful video, Matthew and Sarah Harms recount their experience of learning to trust God's goodness through a deeply painful loss. Raising a daughter with disabilities and losing another have led them to treasure the promise that God is working all things together for their good and his glory (Rom. 8:28).

Do We Have To Pick Between Church and Family? Both/And?

Bob Johnson:

Seventeen years ago I went on a two-week trip to India and Korea to teach in a Bible college and some churches. Security at the airport was not as tight pre-9/11, so my family accompanied me to the gate. As I left my wife and three young children in the midst of a Michigan winter, my youngest daughter cried out "NOOOOO!" so long and so loud that the echo followed me down the jet way into the plane itself. She wasn't the only one who cried that day.

As I sat on the plane and tried to catch one last glimpse of them, I wondered, "What was I doing to my family? Was this trip really worth it? Was I right to do this? Couldn’t someone else have taught this course and preached these messages?" It was not the last time I would ask those questions.

Serving the church is not merely a job; it is an all-consuming responsibility that can threaten a family. The emergency hospital trips and the frantic calls from a heartbroken spouse never come when you are sitting at home, caught up on your to-do list, bored stiff, and hoping for a crisis to break the monotony. For most of us, our bodies may be home, but our full attention is slow to arrive.

There are always more visits to schedule, more people to counsel, more calls to make, more meetings to attend, more functions to pray at, more books to read, more emails to answer, more blogs to write (and read), more classes to take and teach, more work for the sermon(s), more degrees to finish or pursue, more, more, more, meaning that your family will get less, less, less. How many times have you come home late knowing that while you were trying to save your church, your wife was left alone trying to save your kids?

Can we really be effective pastors and good husbands and dads? Do we really have to choose between the church and our family?

Read the rest.

Why Prioritize Family Meals?

Brian Howard:

1. Family meals create conversation that otherwise wouldn’t happen.
2. Family meals facilitate quality parenting moments.
3. Family meals require our our kids to eat foods that are good for them.
4. Family meals improve your kids’ overall physical health.

Read the rest for his explanations.

I would add one more.

Family meals point to the echatological reality to which we all lean when our true family will be gathered at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.  Our small, immediate families point to this future reality and should serve to remind us and cause us to rejoice.

Recommended reading:  A Meal with Jesus

Radical Individualism and the Church as Family

Joe Hellerman:

Mental health professionals are now recognizing a truth taught throughout the Scriptures—emotional healing and spiritual growth occur primarily in the context of interpersonal relationships. People who run away from uncomfortable or downright painful relationships almost invariably repeat the cycle of dysfunction with the next person or the next generation (or the next church) down the line. Those, on the other hand, who stay and courageously engage with others are the ones who grow in their self-understanding and in their abilities to relate to God and to their fellow human beings. Community is, in a word, redemptive.

None of this is terribly novel. We all know it to be the case. Why, then, do we constantly sabotage our most intimate relationships, seek help from others only after the damage is irreversible, and continue to try to find our way through life as isolated individuals, convinced somehow that God will be with us to lead us and bless us wherever we go? Why are we increasingly unable to stay in relationship, stay in community, and grow in those interpersonal contexts which God has specifically provided for our eternal well-being?

Some might attribute the relational crises characterizing our churches solely to individual sin and selfishness. Sin and selfishness, however, have been around since Adam. Why the radical increase in relational breakdown in our society and in our churches today? Something bigger is in the works, and it has to do with the unique orientation of modern Western culture, especially contemporary American society. Ours is a culture which insists to its own destruction that the dreams, goals, and personal fulfillment of the individual deserve a higher priority than the well-being of any group (natural family or church body) or relationship (friendship or marriage) in an individual’s life.

The incessant failures of marriage after marriage, along with the repeated unwillingness of persons to stay in the local church in order to grow through relational conflict, are only superficially due to individual sin and selfishness. Our culture has powerfully socialized us to believe that our individual happiness and fulfillment must take precedence over our relationships with others in our families and in our churches. And it is precisely the influence that this radically individualist worldview exerts upon American evangelical Christians which best explains our struggle to keep relationships together in the body of Christ. The tune of radical individualism has been playing in our ears at full volume for decades. We are dancing to the music with gusto. And it is costing us dearly.

Read the rest.

On Family Tension During The Holidays

Russell Moore:

We tend to idealize holidays, but human depravity doesn’t go into hibernation between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. One thing that will hit most Christians, sooner or later, are tensions within extended families at holiday time.Some of you will be visiting family members who are contemptuous of the Christian faith and downright hostile to the whole thing.

Others are empty nest couples who now have sons- or daughters-in-law to get adjusted to, maybe even grandchildren who are being reared, well, not exactly the way the grandparents would do it. Still others are young couples who are figuring out how to keep from offending family members who are watching the calendar, to see which side of the family gets more time on the ledger. And others are new parents, trying to figure out how to parent their child when it’s Mammonpalooza at Aunt Judie’s house this year.

And, of course, there’s just always the kind of thing that happens when sinful people come into contact with one another. Somebody asks “When is the baby due?” to an unpregnant woman or somebody blasts your favorite political figure or…well, you know.

Here are a few quick thoughts on what followers of Jesus ought to remember, especially if you’ve got a difficult extended family situation.

Read the rest.

Thanksgiving on Mission

David Mathis:

What if God had more for our kin this Thanksgiving than the Macy’s parade, tryptophan-induced naps, and NFL football? What if we saw our gatherings with extended family not as a chance to check out, but as an opportunity for Christian mission?

It should be good news to us that we don’t have to be Jedi-master evangelists to be agents of gospel advance among those whom we know best. In fact, it may be better if we’re not.

So before bellying up to this year’s turkey feast, here’s a few thoughts from a fellow bungler to help us think ahead and pray about how we might grow in being proxies for the gospel, in word and deed, among our families this Thanksgiving. These are some practical ideas for what it might mean to see ourselves as sent among our relatives. These suggestions are inspired by Randy Newman’s excellent book Bringing the Gospel Home: Witnessing to Family Members, Close Friends, and Others Who Know You Well

Click over to read the suggestions.  

The Psychology of Resentment

Dane Ortlund:

Are you resentful?  
You need not experience extraordinary suffering or be wronged in an unusually grievous way to feel the strong, seemingly unstoppable pull toward resentment. All you need to do is live a little while in this fallen world. Before long you're given a good solid reason to resent someone. Often someone quite close to you. Family member, spouse, parent, long-time friend, etc. It feels impossible to love that person. 

What causes such bitterness? Why are our hearts so immovably deadened toward that person? 

Well, they wronged you, so you resent them. They hurt you. They did what they should never have done. Or didn’t do what they should have done. And you bear the wounds. 

Yes—but what’s the reason beneath the reason?

Read the rest.

Kid, you are not special

LZ Granderson:

I don't claim to know everything about parenting, but I do know parents do their children a disservice by constantly sugarcoating their shortcomings to protect their feelings. I can't think of a more surefire way to raise a loser than not allowing a child to learn what it really takes to be a winner.

Not that everything in life is a competition. But if children can't handle competition when it's necessary, or take some criticism, or never strive to be better because their parents inadvertently programmed them to believe they are already the best even when they're not, then they are in for some serious shocks and bumps down the road.

That's the part of the discussion that's missing from all the chatter about David McCullough Jr.'s controversial "You Are Not Special" commencement speech. He didn't call the Wellesley High School Class of 2012 a bunch of lowlifes who won't amount to anything. Rather, he was adjusting their lenses so that they could see the world they were about to enter more clearly.

Read the rest.  

A Challenge for Dads

Michael Kelley:

20 minutes. Maybe less, maybe more, but that seems like a reasonable estimation of the amount of time an average dad has between the time when he leaves work and arrives at home. There’s a myriad of different ways you might spend that time, some more profitable than others. You can break the law and text. You can listen to the radio or a podcast. You could continue to work and make phone calls until the very moment your feet cross the threshold of your home.

But let me, if I could, challenge you to try something else with your 20 minutes:

Consider what you’re bringing into your house this afternoon. Because you are bringing something.

To put it another way, it’s realizing that the temperament of your wife and your kids is going to be altered in some way upon your arrival. It might be that you’ve had a hard day, and you want nothing more than to sit down and watch the news because, after all, you’ve earned it. It might be that you’ve been missing your family all day and you’ll bring laughter and joy with you. Whatever the case, you’re going to bring something. Here, then, is where we get to the challenge.

Read the rest.

Get Michael's new book here.  The reviews have been very strong.

You'll Love Being Thirty!

Hey Vitamin Z fans. I’m filling in today and tomorrow while Zach is out. I am part of The Vine and Z's my homeboy. This coincides with me being one of the official bloggers for the Willow Creek Association's Global Leadership Summit. You can normally keep up with me at Executing Ideas and on Twitter. Here's a fun piece that Relevant used a little over a year ago:

“Thirties are great!” Kris half-shouted over the clamor of the three little kids running around our restaurant table, banging spoons and sippy cups against tables and heads. We were gathered to celebrate one of our members pioneering the crossing into his thirties, the first from the group besides 50-something Kris.

Due to the din, I wasn’t sure that I had heard her correctly. “What did you just say?” I grimaced at her.

“You’re all going to love being thirty. The whole decade of your thirties is fabulous!” Despite being well shy of the normal age for dementia, I thought Kris must be losing it.

The food arrived and the little ones gave us a few minutes of quiet while they smeared pizza in every direction, sometimes even mouths. I listened carefully while Kris further explained her outlandish statement. Later, I mulled over this strange teaching from my wise elder. My brow remained furrowed, but I vowed to investigate once I turned thirty in two years time.

I am now approaching 32. And I love my thirties, and you can, too. Here’s why…

You’re an adult.

Thirty-two is two times 16, which is when I thought I became an adult. I considered my adulthood as starting at that tender age because I could then hurtle along at outrageous speeds at all hours of the day or night in a metal box with rubber wheels, potentially able to kill any number of people in my path. That, if nothing else, is not a responsibility to entrust to a child.

Then when I was 18, I received legal permission to go off and die defending my country (though I didn’t). That conferred a certain adult-like status. And I moved out of my folks’ home permanently just before I turned 19, another landmark. There was a beer on my 21^st, and marriage a few months later. Surely these marked the actual passage into adulthood. Then a little creature named Phoebe entered the world when I was 25, and I became Daddy, the final landmark of manhood. With a bit of help from my wife, I could actually make people. That must mean I am an adult.

However, an uneasiness accompanied all these steps, stages, and birthdays. I didn’t quite feel like an adult, and other adults didn’t seem to really regard me as one. From my peers to my parents’ baby boom generation, no one really regarded me as a grown-up. Sure, everyone would say that they did, but not much was expected from me in any sphere. I still hovered awkwardly in family gatherings, sat lowest in the pecking order at work, and in church I wasn’t about to lead anything except youth or young adult ministries. Everywhere I went, I felt the unspoken message, “You’re an adult (but not really).”

Upon entering my 30s, though, something shifted in how people saw me. Probably I was standing taller—my shoulders finally broadened from my scrawny wedding picture. But I also had more than just a couple months or a year of experience in a few things. People actually consulted me on important questions. I started to feel not just grown-up but downright presidential!

Lose the Angst.

It’s no secret that from puberty, most people enter a decade-long search for who they are, why they’re here, and where they’re going, at least in the dominant North American culture. Our heads spin, and no wonder: the world is your oyster, the sky’s the limit, you can do anything you want, see it and be it, dream big, shoot for the moon.

This wide-open smorgasbord of opportunities and the ability to visualize doing anything anywhere in the world, plus the pressure of finding a mate and a source of income, leads us to a state of mental anguish. What if we choose wrongly? What if we fail? What if we change our minds? We carry the angst of having to move quickly and enjoy everything, or else the train of happy living might pass us by.

To some extent, the questions and concerns are valid. The choices and advances we make in our twenties can take us in radically different directions for the rest of our lives. Taking it too far, though, we let the pressure crush us, leading to unhelpful stress or paralysis. For me, this angst led me to move 35 times while in my twenties, with 12 different jobs, including part-time gigs. I can partly attribute these moves to an honest desire to do whatever work God had for me anywhere in the world. But I also know now that a share of my choices followed my own psychological need to find the “best,” the “right.”

Entering my thirties, this pressure is off. Like Popeye, there’s a sense of “I yam what I yam.” Yes, I’m still pushing in new directions, trying to achieve more, considering new work and places. There’s not the same force behind it, though. I’m comfortable knowing I will get where I’m going eventually. The angst has evaporated.

Nothing to Prove.

In my twenties, as I sensed nobody really regarded me as an adult, I tried to show that I was, in fact, grown up. I wanted to do what was necessary to get “promoted” from the kids’ table. This was not a conscious effort, but my behaviors and choices were made trying to be mature, to be wise, to satisfy all those peers and baby boomers who did not seem to truly see me as an adult.

During my twenties I met weekly with a group of Christians raging in age from 21 to 72. I remember thinking the group must be grateful to have a few of us young ones adding pep to the geriatrics. I look back now and see that we gained at least as much from them, of course, and probably much more. They also had to forgive plenty of our own twenty-something quirks. We thought we knew much more than we actually did. We loved to contribute the latest thing we were learning as if no one had ever learned that lesson in the history of the world. We regularly brought seemingly-urgent prayers for the next major life decision. We were attempting to reduce our metaphysical angst by showing we really could shoot for the moon, all the while fearing that we might screw up and blow it to smithereens.

Now, however, I am 32 and things have changed. I have made my share of mistakes, but life goes on. I have a wonderful, intelligent, beautiful wife. We have two fantastic, smart, cute little kids. My professional life is a joy, flexible and split between training African church leaders and writing and photography projects. I do not need to prove to anyone else that I am an adult because I feel like (and believe) I actually am one.

We tend to think of aging as a downward spiral. From about 25 years onward, aging equals deterioration. We expect to say goodbye to laughing regularly, pulling all-nighters, dating without the ever-looming word “marriage,” and playing pick-up basketball without inflicting lasting damage to joints and ligaments. Meanwhile we say hello to wrinkles, forgetfulness, high insurance premiums, and a peer group that goes to bed at 9 pm and barely keeps up with the fashions of the 1990s. “Sure, thirties are great,” our culture says. “That’s because from there on, it’s just a short road to the nursing home.”

In my conversation with Kris, though, she didn’t just glow about 30s. She had something positive to say about every decade she had lived—exploring your identity in your 20s, finding footholds in your 30s, and believe it or not, she said that our 40s and 50s will be all right, too. I see her and others her friends her age gracefully tackling life changes like becoming a regional director of an organization or helping their children select a college, and I suspect she’s right. I even know some seventy-year-olds who make me look forward to that decade—I can’t wait to sit in my armchair occasionally looking out at my birdfeeder and tell my twenty-five-year-old friends to stop stressing about everything.

But for now, ol’ Kris was right—I love my thirties.

Anybody else love the thirties?

How a Porn Habit Affects Children

Michelle VanLoon:

My father taught me how to ride a bike, the value of a great punchline, and what a woman was supposed to look and act like.

My dad was a great guy with a bad habit.

When we consider relationships negatively impacted by a pornography addiction, most of us first consider the addict’s spouse or girl/boyfriend. It is not just the adult partner who is affected by a porn habit. Even if the addict believes he or she has the habit under wraps, porn’s toxicity leaks into other relationships in an addict’s life.

When I was growing up in the late 1960s and early 1970s, porn made its way into our home in the form of Playboy magazines on our coffee table, next to copies of my mom’s Redbook and Ladies Home Journal. My parents had come of age in the Mad Men era, when Hugh Hefner’s magazine was a signpost of cool in the same way that other sophisticates of their generation smoked cigarettes in the doctor’s office, slow-danced to Sinatra, and imbibed a dirty martini before dinner.

The coffee table reading was only the tip of the iceberg in our home. I can still remember the shock waves that hit me when I discovered the cheaply printed hard-core erotica stashed in my parents’ bedroom. I was 11 or 12 when I discovered a stash of the stuff in my dad’s dresser drawer and nightstand. Whenever my parents left the house, I pored over each plain-wrapped volume. I didn’t fully understand what I had read, but I knew that I’d been initiated into the world of adulthood at an age when I barely understood the mechanics of how babies were made.

Read the rest.

Why Would You Leave College Coaching?

ESPN.com:

To hoops junkies, being a college basketball coach sounds like a dream gig. You immerse yourself in the game you love. You thrive in a position of authority and inherent respect. You define the life trajectory of hundreds of young men. You pack an office with truckloads of knickknacks and memorabilia. You make anywhere from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars a year.

There's a reason so many young graduate assistants and college-age hopefuls throw themselves at the mercy of the oversaturated coaching job market each and every year. More often than not, it's worth it.

The position isn't all glamour, though. Think of all it requires: long hours. Constant attention. Obsessive study. Subservience to the cynical recruiting landscape. Unceasing Blackberry addiction. The knowledge that, when you really get down to it, your job, your livelihood, your position of prestige -- whatever success you've managed to attain in your professional career -- hinges on the waffling whims of 17-year-old kids. And even if you reach the top of your profession, even if you're Tom Izzo or Mike Krzyzewski or Bob Knight, there's always a thousand driven hopefuls willing to go that extra step to knock you down a peg. The job never gets easier. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Is the dream job worth all that it requires? Most coaches seem to think so. But every so often, someone proves that that's not always the case. Today, that coach is Xavier assistant Pat Kelsey, who told the Sporting News that he's not only decided to step away from his promising gig with the Musketeers, he is leaving the game of basketball entirely.

Read the rest.  

Our Family of Origin

Guest post by Doug Wolter

All of us grew up in less-than-perfect families. As a result, we pass on the negative emotional atmosphere of our family-of-origin in both direct and indirect ways. All this makes Christian parenting very challenging! With that in mind, my friend, Dr. Eric Johnson, provides some valuable wisdom for parents in this message entitled: How We Pass on the Emotional Atmosphere of Our Family of Origin. It was given at our SEEDS Parent Chat (Feb, 2010) and can be downloaded here.

Feel free to check out more resources on parenting, marriage, and discipleship here.

Tozer Was Great, but Don't Be Like Him in This Way

With a burning desire to learn and a keen sense of educational inadequacy, Tozer began to devote long hours to reading. He not only read a lot, his mind was preoccupied when he was home, as he continually sorted out ideas and wrote articles in his mind when he could not be alone to put them on paper.

By early 1928 the Tozers had a routine. Aiden found his fulfillment in reading, preparing sermons, preaching, and weaving travel into his demanding and exiting schedule, while Ada learned to cope. She dutifully washed, ironed, cooked, and cared for the little ones, and developed the art of shoving her pain deep down inside. Most of the time she pretended there was no hurt, but when it erupted, she usually blamed herself for not being godly enough to conquer her longing for intimacy from an emotionally aloof husband.

- Lyle Dorsett, A Passion for God: The Spiritual Journey of A. W. Tozer, p. 81

(HT:  KD)

Passion for one thing can be all consuming.  I can certainly relate to this.  Is not passion for God something that should be greatly commended?  Certainly.  Maybe Tozer should have stayed single.  I don't know.  But I do that know that I should check in with my wife and ask her if she see's this tendency in me.