Family

My wife and I had been married about two years when her pastor who had married us asked me to come and preach an eight-day revival meeting. After the last service he pulled me aside and said some nice things about my preaching. His countenance became very serious however and I will never forget his challenge to me.

All of us who are passionate about ministry recognize that we can have competing interests when it comes to balancing our ministry and family responsibilities. If we’re not careful, we can yield to the addiction of busyness in ministry to the neglect of our own family.

February is the month for expressing love. I am glad there is one day set aside on our calendar to let others know how much they mean to us; yet does expressing our love have to be a “one day” event? The quality of our relationships is certainly not defined by the events of a single day! Valentine’s Day should . . .

People are dangerous! Our sinfulness often brings with it the capacity to hurt others. We hurt one another with the words we say and with the things we do or forget to do. Sometimes we injure our relationships with others through carelessness or negligence.

I have told the story of my call to preach and Virginia’s response many times. I believe that was the secret of our ministry in Japan and for sixty-two years of ministry together.

Parenting is not for the faint of heart. And I’m not just referring to the hazards of stepping on legos in the middle of the night. (Although legos do qualify as a parenting hazard.) But primarily I’m referring to the responsibility parents have to shepherd their children’s hearts toward God.

This is the time of year when we realize how fast time flies! We have so many good intentions that are never accomplished because we don’t “make” them happen. Making memories has to be intentional and purposeful. Life is about moments. Don’t wait for them, create them!

As a dad, there is simply no greater joy to me than that my children would love and follow the Lord. I’m grateful for God’s call on their life for the ministry, and I’m thrilled to see how He is using and blessing each of our four children and their spouses.

I remember as a young father hearing stories about pastors’ kids not turning out and being afraid that my children could be among the statistics. I wanted with everything in me to love and nurture my family while at the same time to be faithful to God’s calling on my life for the ministry.

The typical American attitude about summer is that it is a great time to kick back and relax. But could there be more to it? As a parent, when our children were young, Terrie and I saw summer as a time to invest in their lives in ways that were not as possible during the school year.

A—Acknowledge your need for the Lord in the training of your children. B—Begin each school day with prayer before leaving your home.

Here are 15 tips drawn from biblical principles to improve your home that I have found helpful and trust will be a blessing to you.

Being a parent is a tough job. And in today’s broken society, it sometimes seems that there are 1,001 forces working against you. But parenting is not only tough—it’s vital. It’s the highest of callings, and it’s important that you succeed in raising your children to follow the Lord as adults. So how are you to win in this endeavor?

Ahhhhhh summer! What a wonderful time of year to rejuvenate your body, mind, and spirit. If you have a vacation this summer, make the most of it. Use your vacation time wisely. Try not to spend the greater part of it traveling, doing household chores, or even sleeping more than . . .

Assumptions are powerful for two reasons: first, because we often don’t recognize our assumptions (by definition, we accept them as fact) and second, because they do, in fact, shape our actions. In almost thirty years of pastoring and counseling, I’ve discovered that many Christian parents hold false assumptions which they don’t recognize and which they base their parenting decisions upon.

Parents are responsible not only to teach God’s Word to their children but to “teach them diligently.” Deuteronomy 6:7 describes the level of persistence with which we are to teach our children: “and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.”

There’s no question about it: the home is under attack today. And I’m not just talking about subtle attacks that cautiously undermine biblical values. I’m talking about a full on, vicious, satanic attack that is shaking the very definition of the family itself.

If you are building a home, you don’t want to trust your own intuition. You need God’s wisdom and God’s help.

The principle of rest is woven into the pages of Scripture. But in our twenty-first century mentality of hurry, we often miss it. God built cycles of work and rest into creation. (See Genesis 2:2–3; Exodus 20:11.) Even Jesus highlighted the necessity of having times of rest.

“For we are labourers together with God” –1 Corinthians 3:9