As the Head of the Family Should Teach

In the front of Martin Luther’s Small Catechism, the first thing it says is, “The Ten Commandments: As the head of the family should teach them in a simply way to his household.” I’ve been teaching confirmation classes since the Fall of 1995 and I am sad to report that most families don’t know that the head of the family is the one that’s supposed to teach everyone in the household about the Christian faith. I’ve seen so many moms and dads drop their kids off at church for worship, for Sunday school and for confirmation classes, without coming in themselves. It is frustrating when I’ve been trained to supplement the initial teaching of the faith by moms and dads, but in reality I’m just about the only one teaching the faith.

And that’s not good. I don’t have the required relationship with a child, other than with my own, to be able to effectively teach them. Thankfully, God is a good and loving God and makes up for my failures.

But since we love our kids more than just about anything else, I would think that this part of the parent-child relationship would be more important. What could be more vital to a child than their faith in Jesus Christ?

This year’s confirmation class has proved to be a little different than in years past. I see evidence that I’m not the only one teaching the faith, and it is great to see! There are more dads now taking an active role in sharing their faith in Jesus with their kids.

This weekend, take a look around in church. Will you see more dads in our church than seems to be the norm in the American church today? When a dad is worshipping with his family, that family is tremendously blessed. The kids, especially, are given a foundation that will see them through all the pitfalls and storms of life that certainly await them.

There are some great examples of dads in my church, and I’m proud to be associated with them. If you want to be a better dad raising strong sons and daughters, start by getting out the family Bible and just reading to your kids before bedtime (or another time that works for you). Attend worship each week with your family. And pray for your kids. I know dads that actually pray over their sleeping children each evening – what a powerful way to be the head of the family that Martin Luther wrote the Small Catechism for.

©2008 True Men Ministries.

Fear of Sharing

A parent announced to his child’s teacher that he disagreed with his philosophy.

“We let him say anything to us, call us any name he wants. We don’t want to give him the impression that free speech – no matter what that speech is – is wrong.” The result was that this child could call his mom and dad things that would make a drunken sailor blush.

I’m tempted to write, “needless to say the teacher was speechless.” But the word “needless” wouldn’t be inaccurate. It is evident to me that there are some – if not many – in today’s society that do not understand or even know that God has a specific way for us to live. To the teacher’s credit, he responded, when he could respond in an articulate and as loving way as possible, that God doesn’t it like it when His children talk this way. The parent responded, “Really? I didn’t know that.”

This happens not because our society and culture have reached a stage of sophisticated communication, or enlightened form of language. It is because, in my opinion, that people today simply don’t know how God wants us to live.

God loves us. He has a way for us to live. It is the best way because God is perfectly good! But more and more people don’t know this. They have grown up in a world that is increasingly distant from any message from God or teaching about God.

I have been afraid of tell people this. I make my living as a preacher of the Gospel and yet I’m afraid of telling people about God. Not on Sunday morning, but that’s too easy. After all, I’m telling people about God who pretty much already know about God. In other words, I’m not telling them anything they don’t already pretty much know.

It is the people who don’t know about God or about His way of life that I need to tell. And yet I’m afraid. I’ve always been afraid of that. I think it is because I’m afraid of not being liked. Let’s face it; if you are going to share with people both God’s Law and God’s Gospel, you are going to upset people. No one really likes to hear that they are a sinner deserving God’s wrath, even when you can follow up such a message with the sweet Gospel of God’s love for us in Christ Jesus.

Yet, while I am still afraid of doing this, I think I’m doing a decent job of teaching my kids how to do it. And if we teach best by doing, I may not do it well because of my fear, but I am trying to do it. And if my kids see me doing something even though I’m afraid of doing it, that may just be a powerful lesson that they’ll take with them into adulthood.

©2008 True Men Ministries.

Stupid Bird

Friday morning I was sitting on my patio with a cup of coffee checking email and what-not, as I usually do nearly every morning.

And nearly every morning I witness what I think is the world’s dumbest avian. It is a humming bird that visits our back yard regularly. Why, I’m not really sure. We don’t have a humming bird feeder and the flowers in our back yard are few and very far between. But I do have colored Christmas lights hanging from our patio trellis (why take them down in January when you’re going to put them back up 10 months later?).

Like I said, this humming bird is not too bright. He (or she, I don’t know what gender it is) comes nearly each morning and tries to get nectar from the multicolored Christmas lights, only to be disappointed. I imagine a genuinely started and somewhat crestfallen look when he (or she) realizes that the bulb isn’t a flower. But that doesn’t stop the bird from coming back the next morning to try again. Maybe tomorrow the bulb will be a flower!

I’ve heard it said that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over expecting a different result the next time you do it. At the very least it isn’t too bright.

Yet, that’s kind of what I do sometimes. I end up with the same pet sins, same feelings when I don’t get my way, do the same things and then wonder why I didn’t get a different result.

The writer of Proverbs 26:11 says, “As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.”

Jesus came so that we wouldn’t have to be fools like this anymore. It’s time to trust that His power is greater than ours. I need to give up my pet desires and surrender to Christ. Then I’ll find a true flower with real nectar.


©2008 True Men Ministries.

We Stand Alone ... Together!

“I can take care of this myself.”

“If I want something done right, I have to do it myself.”

“Don’t’ worry about it. I’ll take care of it.”

I’ve said all these things – usually many times each week. There’s something in my character that prompts me to be self-sufficient and take care of things by myself. Last week I was making pizza for our Friday night dinner – like we do just about every Friday night at my house. Lately, my sons have been coming into the kitchen to ask if they can help. I’ve been shooing them away because I want to do it myself, I want it done right.

Same thing on Saturday mornings when I make pancakes for the family. I usually take care of it all by myself. But not this time. This time I let go. Saturday morning I let them help, take a part in making pancakes, doing it with me.

When Jesus Christ came walking out of the Judean wilderness after forty days of fasting and preparation for His earthly ministry, He didn’t have the attitude of, “I’ll do this myself.” Yes, there were some things that only Jesus could do – like die on the cross in our place. He alone could save us from our sins. We simply could not help Him with that.

However, even though there were some things only Jesus could do, He didn’t do everything by himself. The first thing He did coming out of the wilderness was to build a team of men around him. The message of salvation takes many voices and Jesus started with twelve.

“Go it alone” is not how a true man of God is called to operate. Instead, because we have a desire to do things on our own but can’t do everything on our own, true men need to take the rallying cry of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne in 1943 – “Curahee!” – “We stand along together!”

Don’t make the mistake that just because you are a member of a Christian church, then you don’t have to worry about this. This “I’ll do it myself” mentality is even prevalent in the church! How did this happen, even when the Church started not with one person but with twelve?

I believe it has been a lack of balance. The message from many pulpits has been that we need to rely on God for all we need. Of course, I’m not going to say that is not true. It most certainly is true. God gives us all we need. But He didn’t intend for us to use what He has given us by ourselves. Remember what God said after He created Adam? “It is not good for the man to be alone.”

We must rely on God but also recognize that God gives us friends and family!

We stand alone … together!

©2008 True Men Ministries.
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Dad's Shoulders

I was at the pool one day while on vacation and I watched a dad with his two-year-old son. The son was on his dad’s shoulders in the pool and the dad was bobbing up and down in the water. The look of shear delight on the son’s face said it all. However, if the son was bobbing up and down in the water by himself, this wouldn’t have been nearly as fun – and it would have been terrifying if the bobbing wasn’t controlled.

Water can be a lot of fun but also very, very dangerous – especially for one so young. But when the son was attached to his father, there was no fear, even in a potentially very dangerous place.

Can you see where I’m going with this?

We are all the “sons” (and daughters) and God is the Father. If we are attached to Him, there is nothing that can harm us – even in a very dangerous place. But if we are detached from God, then there is fear and there is danger.

We never outgrow our need for God our Father. There comes a time in every boy and girl’s life that we no longer can be on our dad’s shoulders. We get too old, or too big, or dad is no longer there. Life get’s scary for just that reason. When I left home for the first time, I was scared. I went away to college when I was 19 and I was scared because my dad and mom wouldn’t be there like they were before. Thankfully, they are still around for me and my family. I get to see them regularly and talk to them nearly every day. But I can’t get on my dad’s shoulders and bob up and down in the pool. I’m too big, too old. I miss those days of care-free and no fear with my dad.

But I still have them with my heavenly Father. He is always with me and I can never out-grow Him or His love. I’m still “on His shoulders” and I don’t have to fear anything in this world. I still do, but I don’t have to. When I am afraid, it isn’t because God isn’t there. It’s because I’m trying to get off His shoulders and bob in the pool by myself.

©2008 True Men Ministries.

Fatherhood from the Band of Brothers

I am becoming convinced that most of the problems in our world are caused by father’s not being godly fathers to their children. But I am also convinced that railing on fathers, casting blame, and degrading fathers for this is not the answer to the problem. The answer is to reach as many fathers as I can with the life-changing, and generational saving, good news of Jesus Christ.

Don Malarkey was strongly motivated to do what he did in World War II by his father. His father had a successful business in Astora, Oregon. Their family lived in upper middle-class comfort. But in the latter part of the 1930’s, the Great Depression finally caught up with the Malarkey’s and Don’s father lost the business, and then the house. Don’s dad then “checked out.” They moved into their vacation cabin in the woods (because they had lost their house) and Don’s dad sat in his chair and just stared. He rarely talked to anyone. The rest of the family had to take up the slack. Don’s dreams of a good school and career were tremendously altered. In December of 1941, they were changed forever when he enlisted in the Army and volunteered for paratrooper training.

At Camp Toccoa, Don met another man who also had a pretty drastic relationship with his own father. He made his son drop out of high school at age 15 and go to work in the mines. Because of this he was always embarrassed that he couldn’t speak well, write well, and was, in general, not well-educated like the other guys. However, he made up for it by being , in Don’s opinion, the best soldier in Easy Company.

These two men’s fathers negatively motivated them to do great things – no less than having an important part in saving the world from evil tyranny.

But I can’t help but wonder what these two men would have been like had they been positively effected by their fathers. What would they have been like if their relationship with their dads during their developmental years had been as God intended it to be? Because, you see, after they saved the world, they had a rough life for along time after. The discipline that they had in the army – what they really needed from their fathers, disappeared after they got out of the service. They were not exposed to what they needed as men long enough while in the army. Nor is the army a good substitute for a good father. It can certainly help, but it is much better for the army to build on the foundation that a good father lays in a child.

I’m not saying that these guys are bad. They are good men who have done extraordinary things. But a major lesson for us is the “what could have been” lesson. The army gave them the discipline and – for lack of a better word - “love” that their fathers should have given to them when they were younger. It changed them. But it still took longer for this change to be for the good for them.

When God our heavenly Father comes into our lives through Word and Sacrament our lives are changed, transformed. It is a change that lasts and grows and is good as we are nourished through continued use of Word and Sacrament. As we involve ourselves in a fellowship of believers, our hearts grow strong and our relationships with our spouses, our children, grow and will be instruments of transformation for many generations.

When most men become fathers, they want to be good fathers. But it is becoming increasingly rare that men know how to be good fathers. There is still an excellent example of good fatherhood for all men – God the Father Almighty. It is never too late to learn from our heavenly Father. It is never too late to come to Him. Your relationship with your earthly father may not have been all that good, but your relationship with your Heavenly Father can be – come to Him today! It will transform you and one of the transformations will be your own relationship with your children – for the good!

©2008 True Men Ministries.

Don't Quit

Don huddled in the freezing cold with a group of other guys around a pitifully small fire. The guys were chatting but Don was lost in thought, staring at the embers. “One shot,” he thought. “One shot and it would all be over.” He was fondling the frozen, wooden grip of his pistol. The “one shot” was a well-aimed pistol-shot through his foot. One carefully self-inflicted gun-shot wound would end the freezing, the pain, the hunger. It would get him off the line and, most likely, back to England and out of the war – perhaps for good.

Yes, it would be quitting. But it was so cold! And the things he had seen! Just yesterday, one friend had died and another two had been severely wounded and were heading home.

One shot would end the war for him. But at what cost? He realized that it would cost him his integrity and that would be too high a cost.

Nearly ten years earlier, his father had quit. It was during the Great Depression. It had finally caught up with his father’s insurance business. They lost everything – money, the house, everything. But to Don, there was no sin it that. Most everyone was affected by the Depression. The sin was not that his father lost everything. It was that his father had quit.

Now, in that foxhole in the forest outside of Bastogne, Belgium in January, 1945, Don was faced with a similar choice. Quit or fight on?

Don chose to fight on.

Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we'd better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we're in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he's there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls! – Hebrews 12:1-3 (The Message)

We all face times when we want to quit. We’re tired, we’re weary, we couldn’t possibly go on like this. A marriage that has fallen on near-impossible times. A job that we detest. A boss that we can’t work for. A member at church that we just are tired of with all their complaining. It would be easier to just give up, to quit.

But at what cost? God did not create us to be quitters! He sent Jesus Christ to die for our sins to give us the power to overcome everything in this life. Through the power of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ we can get through our “winters.” We can fight on, run the race, strive for the prize. Christ did! He blazed the trail for us. Don’t give up! Stay on that trail, because Christ came back and now walks with us – side-by-side, and sometimes carrying us – as we run the race.

Don’t quit. All may seem lost but it really isn’t. You can keep fighting. God will give you that power. When you feel like quitting, remember this: This is exactly what Satan wants you to do. This is the moment that he’s most fearful of. C.S. Lewis wrote, in The Screwtape Letters, (a fictional account of one devil’s letters – Screwtape – to another devil, Wormwood), “Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human … looks round upon a universe from which every trace of the enemy [God] seems to have vanished, asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys” (emphasis added).

I'm homesick—longing for your salvation; I'm waiting for your word of hope. My eyes grow heavy watching for some sign of your promise; how long must I wait for your comfort? There's smoke in my eyes—they burn and water, but I keep a steady gaze on the instructions you post. How long do I have to put up with all this? How long till you haul my tormentors into court? The arrogant godless try to throw me off track, ignorant as they are of God and his ways. Everything you command is a sure thing, but they harass me with lies. Help! They've pushed and pushed—they never let up—but I haven't relaxed my grip on your counsel. In your great love revive me so I can alertly obey your every word. Psalm 119:81-83 (The Message)

©2008 True Men Ministries.

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Join with True Men Ministries to help other men become True Men of God by visiting www.truemen.org and committing yourself to God and His plan for you.
True Men Ministries needs your support! Your donations of $10, $20, $50 or whatever amount you feel led to give are greatly appreciated. They are also tax-deductable. You can also join the True Men Prayer Warriors at the TMM web site.