WHERE ARE THE DADS?
Last night, we hosted a Valentines Banquet at our church, which was well attended and really surprised me because we actually held it on Valentines Day and I really didn’t know how well that would work.
Anyway, the Todd Keller Family came over from Amarillo and performed. As I was listening, really enjoying the fact that for this night I got to be a part of the congregation rather than the one on the stage leading, one theme kept running through my mind. Where are the dads’s in our culture.
Todd spoke of the immanent disintegration of the family within America and Evangelicalism specifically. I have heard these statistics many times before, but seemingly very few affluent leaders really offer a detailed plan to turn the tables. Every time I attend a conference/convention/etc. These statistics are used and essentially the delivers want us to see how bleak the outlook is. I for one pray that the church realize she has the power to shift and reverse this trend.
Here is my plan. Prepare yourself, it is deep. We need men to step up to the plate and lead their families and churches. Dads need to be dads. In our country we have shifted the meaning of the American dream to mean giving your family the newest car, biggest house, and best vacations. Many times this leads to men being at work 80 hours a week to provide this stuff. The real question is at what cost. What are we sacrificing to have more. The answer is our families and churches. We probably need to trade in the American Dream for the Biblical mandate. Fathers need to step up to the plate and man up. Our kids need tough, steady, real men to teach them what it means to be a Christian man. Many times in our churches we present a type of manhood that is watered down by our culture rather than the rough and tough view of manhood presented in the Bible. I am going to be writing much more concerning this in the next few days. God is really crawling me about this issue.
1 Comment
February 15, 2008 at 7:14 pm
I also enjoyed last night, and thought the food was wonderful. Thanks to the people who decorated for it. Really enjoyed Todd and his family and their talent. I’m excited to hear “the rest of the story from you”