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Voddie Baucham, Jr. has been called an “evangelist to intellectuals.” Dr. Baucham currently serves as Pastor of Preaching at Grace Family Baptist Church in Spring, Texas. He and his wife Bridget have been married since 1989, and they have 9 children. He published Family Driven Faith in 2011.
He maintains that discipleship and multi-generational faithfulness begins and ends at home. He starts by asking some pointed questions, “Do you know where your children are spiritually? Are your children on the road to responsible Christian adulthood, or are they part of an alarming new trend that has seen the overwhelming majority of so-called Christian children walk away from the faith?
According to researchers, between 70 and 88 percent of Christian teens are leaving the church by their second year in college. Baucham’s co-teacher, Paul Shockley, defines truth as: That which corresponds to reality, identifies things as they actually are, can never fail, diminish, change, or be extinguished, must be able to be expressed in propositional statements, and is sourced in the God of the Bible who is the Author of all truth. Unfortunately, 85 percent of “born again teens” do not believe in the existence of absolute truth. Over 60 percent agreed with the statement, “nothing can be known for sure except the things you experience in your own life.” More than half of those surveyed believed that Jesus sinned during His earthly life!
Many parents are focused on athletic or extra-curricular activities at the expense of time at church and time with God. Baucham puts it this way, “If I teach my son to keep his eye on the ball but fail to teach him to keep his eyes on Christ, I have failed as a father. We must refuse to allow trivial, temporal pursuits to interfere with the main thing. Making the team is a tremendous achievement; however, it must be put in its proper perspective. No sports endeavor will ever be as important as becoming a man or woman of God.”
He goes on to explain, “We cannot expect our children to rise above our example. If my kids don’t see me spending time in God’s Word, they probably won’t. If they see me using inappropriate language or involved in ‘coarse jesting’ (Ephesians 5:4), they will probably follow suit. If they see me scream at their mother and treat her with contempt, they will probably disrespect her as well. We can try to teach them to do as we say, not as we do, but our words can only go so far when they are contradicted by our actions. The key is to understand that our children don’t belong to us—they belong to God. Our goal as parents must not be limited by our own vision. I am a finite, sinful, selfish man. Why would I want to plan out my children’s future when I can entrust them to the infinite, omnipotent, immutable, sovereign Lord of the universe? I don’t want to tell God what to do with my children—I want Him to tell me! When I allow my will to take precedence over God’s will, I have not only given way to a rival—I have become one.”
Several years ago Hillary Clinton made headlines with her “It Takes a Village” campaign. This, of course, was borrowed from the familiar African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child.” However, the Hillary Clinton version sounds more like, “It takes big, intrusive government programs and bureaucrats to raise a child.” Recently another U.S. Senator, Rick Santorum, issued a shot across the bow when he wrote “It Takes a Family.” However, the Hillary Clinton model has taken root. We have come to believe that parenting is a task best left to professionals. Unfortunately, this mentality is not limited to the culture at large; the church has also been affected.
The key to understanding the role of the family in discipling children is understanding the purpose of the Fifth Commandment. This commandment was not given for the sake of the individual child as much as it was given for the sake of the community. The Fifth Commandment was the foundation upon which the concept of multigenerational faithfulness is built. God designed the family to disciple children and insure the faithfulness and perpetuation of the community of faith throughout the ages. In other words, God says to us (through the Fifth Commandment), “If you want to continue to exist as the people of God in the midst of the pagan land that I am about to give you, you will have to do so by training and discipling your children.” This is the linchpin in every argument Baucham makes in this book. God designed your family—not the youth group, not the children’s ministry, not the Christian school, but your family—as the principal discipling agent in your children’s lives. The most important job you have as a parent is to train and disciple your children.
Baucham argues that nothing will spur a father toward godly, spiritual discipline in his own walk with Christ more than leading his family in worship. In order to teach his wife and children, he will have to study the Scriptures on his own. A godly woman will be encouraged and inspired as she sees her husband take responsibility and lead in family worship. This practice sets a tone of harmony and love in the household and is a source of strength when they go through affliction together. As they pray for each other their mutual love is strengthened. If our family exists to glorify and honor God and to lay a biblical foundation in the lives of our children, then we must not allow anything to interfere with our commitment to family worship, prayer, and Bible study.
With a birth rate hovering around two children per family, a biblical worldview rate below 10 percent, and about 75 percent of our teens leaving the church by the end of their freshman year in college (using the more optimistic estimates), it currently takes two Christian families in one generation to get a single Christian into the next generation. According to the research, parents typically have no plan for the spiritual development of their children, do not consider it a priority, have little or no training in how to nurture a child’s faith, have no related standards or goals that they are seeking to satisfy, and experience no accountability for their efforts.
In the end, Baucham reflects, “Nothing I’ve shared in this book is new. Richard Baxter was singing the same tune in the 1600s. He noted: You are not likely to see any general reformation, till you procure family reformation. Some little religion there may be here and there; but while it is confined to single persons, and is not promoted in families, it will not prosper, nor promise future increase.”
May these lessons from Family-Driven Faith inspire you, as you shoot for the stars!