During our recent trip to Bob Jones University I shared with students about the missionfield of children. One contrast I noted to the geographic missionfields of the world is that this missionfield is the one that often comes to you. That can be a sobering thought for a student. It’s an even more sobering thought for me as a parent now. I am reminded of it every day as I see our five children progressing from childhood, to adolescence, to the horizon of adulthood.
One huge blessing this year has been for our family to read through the book of Genesis together. It’s been an epic journey that no blockbuster movie can touch. As we concluded we took time to reflect on some favorite portions. Some pointed to well known accounts like Noah and the ark, the life of Joseph, and the Creation. One lesser known portion God blessed us through was the transformation of Jacob’s fourth son, Judah. He goes from a man consumed by greed and lust to one willing to forfeit his life for the sake of his young brother Benjamin. Only God can bring that kind of transformation and the story gets even better as you look forward in scripture to see how God brings the Messiah through that family line!
I learned something through Judah. It’s tempting to skip over aspects of his life in family devotions—especially Genesis 38. But as I wrestled with how to share his debauchery with my children, I realized that it brought to the forefront of our conversations some of the things that are at the forefront of our culture. And our culture has no inhibitions about speaking to these topics via its many channels. My children need to hear me talk about these things (in age-appropriate ways) and they need to hear what God says about them.
That’s one of the reasons I am so encouraged by our summer release of our new Family Worship Series book on Mark’s Gospel. This tool encourages families to gather around the Word of God and to read a book from beginning to end, chewing on it just a little bit at a time. That “chewing” takes the form of talking, praying and singing together. Our next two books in the series will be Philippians and James.
One reason that we’re able to move forward with both of these projects is because of the funding received through our ministry banquet in September. We gathered on Friday, September 17th at Shady Maple Smorgasbord for a banquet focused on “PLANTING SEEDS” of the Gospel in children’s hearts. We welcomed Dr. Steve Pettit and the BJUgrass team who our family met up with earlier this summer. During the banquet prelude and postlude Samuel and David joined the team on several songs. Before the team left town on Sunday, we enjoyed a meal together at our home.
If you would like to watch the banquet, you can see the full version or the highlight video below.
