Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 105 | Be Strategic About the Spiritual Life of Your Home

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Ep. 105 | Be Strategic About the Spiritual Life of Your Home · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  I think that's our biggest crisis is that fathers and men just don't lead. Even if they love Jesus, they just don't lead. They don't have that capacity. They don't think about it. They're very passive.
• 0:14
  Hey guys, welcome to the 5-Minute Fatherhood Podcast. I'm your co-host, Jeff Bethke, along with my friend and mentor, Jeremy Pryor. Join us Monday through Friday as we chat about quick tips, skills, and ways to help equip you on your journey as a father to build your multi-generational family team on mission. Stay tuned.
• 0:36
  What's up, guys? Welcome to 5-Minute Fatherhood. We think that it's really important for every family to have a strategy for how do you get spiritual life in the home. And this is tough, you guys. We know that in our culture, a lot of us grew up, if you grew up in a Christian family, a lot of you probably saw your spiritual life primarily happening at church. That's the way that a lot of us were taught. And even if you are a new believer, you're going to see that as sort of the primary way that people think about their spiritual life. And so...
• 1:04
  Is it important to have a spiritual life in the home? So one of the quotes that always has stood out to me here is Jonathan Edwards. We've talked about him before. He's a famous theologian from the early part of America's history. He said, every Christian family ought to be as if it were a little church. Every Christian family ought to be, as it were, a little church. Is that true? And have you guys thought about what it's like to develop a family in this way?
• 1:30
  Probably one of the most challenging things I've ever read about the requirements or where the bar could be set for what it looks like to have a spiritual life in the home was set by the Church of Scotland. So they had a directory on family worship that was written by sort of the elders of that church, and this is way back in the 1600s. And so let me read this to you guys. I'm curious how you respond to this, Jeff. He says,
• 1:57
  Having required that the minister and ruling elders make diligent search whether there were families under their care neglecting this matter of family worship, the assembly went on to say, quote, This is saying, so if there is a father who is not leading his family spiritually in some kind of family worship experience. Okay.
• 2:23
  privately to amend his fault. And in case of his continuing therein, he is to be gravely and sadly reproved by the session, after which reproof, if he be found still to neglect family worship, let him be for his obstinacy in such an offense suspended and debarred from the Lord's Supper till he amend. So a multi-tier process for how to... That's awesome.
• 2:49
  First of all, be searching for these fathers who are not leading their family spiritually to be requiring them to initiate some kind of rhythms in the home around family worship times. And if they don't, then this process of like reproving and bringing them before the session and...
• 3:06
  So that's kind of intense. I know a lot of us don't live in church traditions that have this kind of rigorous discipline structure. But what I think was really helpful and kind of inspiring is that I was imagining an entire country or whole cities of believers where every single household was expected to be kind of like a little mini church in the way that they did spiritual rhythms in the home. I think that we've just come a long ways away from this idea.
• 3:33
  Yeah, that is... I mean, I love that. What's crazy, too, is there's two things there. One, first of all, I feel like, man, what would that even do for the Western church today? I think that's our biggest crisis, is that fathers and men just don't lead. Even if they love Jesus, they just don't lead. They don't have that capacity. They don't think about it. They're very passive. Christianity is sadly a woman's and mother's sport in America, for lack of a
• 4:01
  That's the problem, man. So what would this look like if like, because I actually think a lot of dads would receive this well. I think, I think a lot of dads aren't being nudged and aren't being challenged and aren't being encouraged. But I think a lot of workplaces do this really well. Now, of course you can do this in a really overbearing way, et cetera, but there's a way to do this really, really well and gently, I think. And I'm really surprised by this, that they actually wrote this down and had this as a rule. What I love too, though, is then also from a pure strategic standpoint for the church, I love how the church is implicitly admitting this is really, really important. Yeah.
• 4:30
  that our Sunday gathering is not the thing, right? That our congregation of 200 people is not the thing. If we want to be a healthy 200-person congregation, we absolutely have to have high-level accountability and challenges at the five-person thing, which is the table and the home.
• 4:46
  And that is what the 200 people make up is a bunch of little households. And so that I love is that they strategically and are implicitly saying, this is actually how we're going to make sure we stay faithful and build the church by making sure we're on top of each household being obedient and faithful and honoring and living into God's full design for us as a family team. So yeah, I love that. So dads, I mean, be encouraged or maybe be challenged today, whichever you take from that. But could you say you would pass the Church of Scotland directly of family worship, directory of family worship test? I don't know.
• 5:15
  Would you? I know it's, I'm going to think about that later today for sure, but I hope it encouraged you. Hey guys, we want to personally invite you to our five minute fatherhood Facebook group. Even if you don't use Facebook, consider jumping into this group because we're creating a community of dads who are learning to coach their family teams on mission. We help answer questions you have about fatherhood. We celebrate wins. We interact with you through exclusive live Q and a sessions and more. Just go to Facebook and search for five minute fatherhood, all spelled out, no numbers and request to join.