Archive for Family
We are Family!
Posted by: | CommentsIn viewing Dr. Al Mohler’s forum at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary I found myself in agreement with the resolution of his analogies. He presented analogous formulas to represent where the Southern Baptist Convention came from and where she finds herself today. Based on those analogous formulas Dr. Mohler ended up with a presumption that we must drastically change our organizational structure and the funding apparatus in order to fund an missiological mindset for today’s younger generation. According to Dr. Mohler, we must move into the future with our structural and institutional methods open. In other words, what we have today will not look like or function like what we will have tomorrow. Also, what we move to tomorrow will not look like or function like what we will move to in the future. Dr. Mohler’s analogy is spot on–if we view the Southern Baptist Convention form a corporate mindset. Dr. Mohler’s analogies were correctly based as he gave much historical data illustrating how we have reorganized in the past based on the corporate structure. Which brings me to the purpose of my article.
The Presence of These Witnesses
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In our most recent podcast, Robin Foster made a statement that really jumped out at me the last time I listened to it. We were talking about the subject of “polyamory,” a concept that Dr. Albert Mohler addressed in a recent radio program. In discussing what this strange concept says about the state of marriage, Robin pointed out that much of the blame for the disintegration of marriage in our culture can be placed at the feet of evangelical Christians. He then said, “The rugged individualism of the last century has overtaken the theology of the church.”
At first blush, the demise of marriage may seem unrelated to this loss of the “theology of the church” that Robin identified, but I want to suggest that the two are very much related. In that discussion, we talked about a deemphasis upon ecclesiology that has also been an effect of this individualism. In the decline of a strong ecclesiology, many important things were lost, including redemptive church discipline and a sense on the part of church members of their place in the body. What has been lost is any sense of the real-life implications of Paul’s elegant description of the church in 1 Corinthians:
Kitchen Tables and Interventions
Posted by: | CommentsThe way I write is actually fairly simple – it’s much like birthing a sermon. You incubate it in prayer, research it in study, and wrestle with it until you have a burden you believe is from God that you must communicate. With apologies to Martin Luther, my burden for this article was birthed at the kitchen table. It was a discussion about a family member leaving her husband and the resulting unintended consequences of the divorce. The typical topics emerged – the pursuit of personal happiness, emotional abuse, and the bottom line offered in most such conversations in American life: it’s my life butt out. Not much to create a writer’s burden or lift writer’s block but the seeds started sprouting fairly quickly. The seminal seed that took root in my thoughts was what role the church should or could play in such a situation. How could the church most effectively be the church in this situation? Both participants in this family fiasco are believers that frequent a local Baptist church. This is not a case of ministering to or reaching unbelievers.
Busyness: The Thief of Family Memories
Posted by: | Commentsby Alan Melton
“Seventeen summers,” said the busy father, wistfully describing the memory of his oldest child growing up. He continued, “We get seventeen summer vacations, and then our children are gone.” His statement stung me as I thought about my own family experience. Is that all there is with parenting; seventeen family vacations? If scripture teaches that children are a blessing, why am I not enjoying that blessing?
I thought about my own busy schedule; go to work Monday through Friday with some evening work, then Monday night- Deacon’s meeting/basketball practice, Tuesday night- church visitation, Wednesday night- prayer meeting & youth Choir, Friday night- youth group meeting, Saturday- basketball game, yard work and church social, Sunday- teach
Sunday School, attend worship, and back to church by 5:00pm for discipleship classes and evening worship. Most days we ate fast food or restaurant food while running to activities. My schedule allowed me exactly one night per week to spend with my family, and guess how we spent it? We went out to dinner, then watched television, a movie or I was on the internet! At one point my wife worked outside of the home, which would have made things even worse. Now she was busy providing taxi service to and from school, to basketball, to dance. Add to that television, video games, neighborhood friends and all kinds of other activities that I couldn’t oversee.
