Family Driven Faith - Chapter 1

I just got Voddie Baucham's new book Family Driven Faith and will be giving a chapter by chapter review and synopisis over the next few weeks. Voddie also has a Family Diven Faith web site.

Chapter 1 - The Lay of the Land

Do we as Christian parents all too often look at the world through the lens of the world? Voddie puts forth that instead of asking the question “Do you know where your children are?” we should be asking “Do we know where our children are spiritually?” He relates how in his travels he speaks to youth brought up in Christian homes but often they are either not regenerate to begin with or are simply not brought up with a well grounded Christina perspective.

The tile of the first chapter, The Lay of Land, sets out to make sure we see truly where we are as a people. We see that often the priorities of the world invade the lives of Christian families and we take on those same priorities. We see our work, wealth and well being as primary over God and the family and thus get things backwards. Yes God does come before family but in the end if we ignore the command to care for our families in a biblical manner we in essence also ignore God.

Voddie uses the analogy of having a Wide Screen or Full Screen view of the world and that the average person has a Full Screen view. The point being that in Wide Screen movies there are black bands on the top and bottom and people think they are missing something but in reality it is the Wide Screen view that reveals the full picture. In today’s families people are all too afraid that their families may miss something if they are not involved in every extracurricular activity available. So, we make sure our kids are involved in every sport and every other activity that appears to give them a full life but in reality this does not do this and instead will limit time to experience the life as God desires.

Voddie, in this chapter also touches on areas such as a misguided view of education (Making the Grade), sports and extracurricular activities (Making the Team) and even wrong views on dating (Making Time). He then moves onto some aspects of the world that even Christians have assumed such as having an attitude that creates an Anti-Marriage and Anti-Child culture. The sad part is that scripture speaks of the blessing of children but how many professing Christians see children as a hindrance to advancement and any number of other things. This may be the attitude of the world but it is not to be the biblically directed attitude of believers if we truly believe God’s word is our source of direction. Unfortunately Christians have abdicated their source of direction to the world and have followed the lead of the world we are to change. The result is we are changed by the world than the other way around.

He ends the chapter with this:

"There are many worthwhile pursuits in this world, but few of them rise to the level of training our children to follow the Lord and keep His commandments. I desperately want my sons and daughters to walk with God, and I am willing to do whatever it takes, whatever the Bible says I must do in order to be used by God as a means to that end. My prayer for you is that God would awaken in you that same passion. Something tells me He already has."

Next, Chapter 2 – A God with No Rivals