Family First

speaker-0: Faith Baptist Church presents This Week in the Word.

speaker-1: Taylor's presentation. Pastor Caleb Phelps. I'm privileged to serve as pastor here at Faith Baptist Church in Taylor, South Carolina. And I'm joined this morning by Pastor Mark Herbster, who is our family pastor here at Faith Baptist. And the reason we're starting this conversation today in a new format we're going to be calling this week in the Word is we want to share the heartbeat of this ministry through this content. And one of the heartbeats of our church recently has been our desire to put the family first. And it's to that end. that Mark and Amy on are on our staff. So I'm glad you could be with us, Mark, today.

speaker-0: Well it's a real joy to be with you pastor and to serve with you here and love this emphasis and it's really what drew me to Faith Baptist Church. Right.

speaker-1: It it's an a it's a critical time for us to be having this conversation. Absolutely. And today we're going to be talking about that our philosophy as a ministry that we hope to be grounded in God's word by putting the family first. But I wanna start before we get into conversation with Pastor Mark, ⁓ by reviewing even some of the introductory materials and statistics that we gave when it came to introducing Mark's position, which is a new position for our church ministry. When it came to introducing that position, This is the information that we gave to our church family. So let let's begin with some of that before we get into our conversation together. Depending on where you look, we are losing between somewhere between 75% and 88% of young people by the end of their freshman year in college. It's a it's a sobering number. For that low number, you can go to Glenn Schultz work on kingdom education. For that high number, the twenty twelve Southern Baptist Council on the Family.

speaker-0: Yeah, really sobering.

speaker-1: And so when we say in this conversation together that Mark and I are about to have that our church and our homes in our church are in a crisis, we're not just grabbing at straws. There is. And that is happening over not over the past few decades. We're losing an entire generation. Now I want to add some numbers to that to help us think even more on this. For the first time in American culture, our birth rate is below the replacement rate. ⁓

speaker-0: Yeah, there's statistics tobacco.

speaker-1: Replacement rate is two point one children per family. We are at one point nine child per family. Now we're not as bad yet as some of the industrial world. For example, France is one point five children per family, Italy is one point one children per family. But we obviously do have a problem.

speaker-0: It's not saying much if we're just above France and Italy.

speaker-1: That's not saying much if we're just above France and Italy. In fact, to put more skin on that game when it came to France, France has a birth rate of one point five children per family. However, there are North Amer African Muslims and Arabic Muslims who are immigrating into France with a birth rate of six children per family. Which means in two generations, guess which nation is the next Muslim nation?

speaker-0: Right. It's so that's skewing even the the ⁓ citizens of France. Their their statistics are being skewed by the the immigrant population. Right.

speaker-1: And they're about to become a Muslim nation. Yeah. So let me put the reason I'm giving you the statistics, let me put these statistics together and frame our conversation. We lose 75% of our children by the end of their freshman year of college. That's the more optimistic number. We average two children per family. That means it takes two Christian families in this generation to get one Christian into the next.

speaker-0: Right. Which is crazy. At this present rate.

speaker-1: This president, right. So let's make it even more plain. Imagine with me, there are sixteen million evangelical American Christians today. By those numbers, we will have four million by the next generation. The third generation, if we stay on this rate, will boast one million. And the fourth generation will have just two hundred and fifty thousand.

speaker-0: It's a rapid digression.

speaker-1: It's happening and it's happening fast. Yeah. So what has been our solution?

speaker-0: Well, often our solution is to try to add more things that excite children or excite family values of some sort. Just add more programs to our church. Be busier.

speaker-1: Be busier. Yeah. Do do more things. Do more things. Consume

speaker-0: Hm because that you know, we sometimes parents wrongfully think that that's what's firing up their kids.

speaker-1: Right. If they're excited and happy to go to church then we've done our job.

speaker-0: Just get ⁓ to the church. As long as we get ⁓ to the church, get ⁓ to the programs, have ⁓ involved, do service things, surely that will be what will ⁓ last in their lives. Right. But we remember we're in a consumer mindset society. It's a consumer. And ⁓ you know, if if the consumer idea is gone, then they won't consume it. So I mean and so that's what motivates a lot of churches to do like radical shifts. In order to keep people, keep these young people that are now adults, keep them in the church. They gotta keep doing more things that are more exciting and and really, you know, we're totally flip flopped on why we're doing what we're doing. Right.

speaker-1: S some would even make it spiritual, right? Okay, well okay, I see those numbers and we agree with you. 'Cause it's hard to you know, as Ben Shapiro says, facts don't care about your feelings. So here are the facts, right? I I get it. So we'll just replenish those numbers through evangelism. Well, isn't that interesting? Let me give some stats to your evangelistic function, right?

speaker-0: Mm. That's true.

speaker-1: Did you know that in order to replenish those numbers that it just gave you through evangelism alone, you would need to reach three lost people for every one Christian in your church today?

speaker-0: Right. And we all know how difficult it is to even reach one person right now in our world. Right. Much less three or four or five. It's you know, th th that's not the proper way to reach the next generation. The proper way is through the Christian home.

speaker-1: Yeah. The most promising statistics tell you that in an average chur in a really good church doing it really well, they're reaching one unbeliever for every fifty churchgoers.

speaker-0: Yeah, right. Now this does not negate the fact that we should, of course, be passionate about evangelism. That's part of the church. ⁓ but you know, we cannot replenish the ⁓ children of our own families. I mean, if we can't evangelize our own children and can't disciple our own children, then how are we gonna expect to replenish the church with evangelizing everybody else's children?

speaker-1: Course not. Yeah. It it's amazing to me. We we talk about how we want more souls in the kingdom and how we should be in the business of souling soul winning. Right. But what practically we mean by that is we want more souls in the kingdom so long as we don't have to birth them, raise them, and feed them.

speaker-0: Yeah. And actually, Pastor, you know, sometimes, sad to say throughout church history, some of the worst culprits to this are people that are evangelizing. Right. People in ministry, people who are, you know, some some famous missionaries who lost all of their children. Right. So, and sometimes, you know, I'm not negating that they did wonderful things that that we can commend them for, but the question is, did Was that the right priorities? Right.

speaker-1: We've used a phrase, you've used a phrase, that's kinda why I wanted to jump on here and and actually start this format with this conversation. Since your arrival especially, we've really continued to emphasize put the family first. Right? So we're we're we're tipping our hand to where we believe our priorities ought to lie. Yes. Why is that our priority?

speaker-0: Well, I appreciate the conversation so much because my the burden that has gripped my heart as I have traveled across the country and around the world in the years of evangelism and then of course ministering to other people's children in the college environment that I did up in Wisconsin and now of course coming here. But the burden of my heart has become that really the the one of the main issues that we face is that the family has not been made a priority. And we make the family first, and I've just been studying this text recently, is because God made the family first in Genesis chapter one. Right. And we know the creation account itself puts the family first because as soon as God makes man and woman and he tells them to be fruitful and multiply, he's talking about family. That's in the Genesis account in Genesis chapter one. Mm-hmm. So I feel like before the church, before ⁓ before other relationships, before all things, we should consider what is going on in our homes. Strong homes build strong churches. Strong churches then reach communities and revival comes. Where does it start? It starts in our homes. And of course, strong homes are built by men and women fulfilling their biblical role. That God has given to us in the Word of God. So yeah, I think it it has to be the top priority under our relationship with God. Bring glory to God first by bringing glory to God in the Christian home.

speaker-1: And it's kind of stunning to think where we've been. I I'm gonna read a a quote. This is Alan Reed in his book Raising the Bar. ⁓ he makes this observation. Over the last thirty years, we have seen the largest increase in the number of professional youth ministries, youth ministry degrees handed out, and parishurch organizations to reach youth, and we have seen at the same time the greatest decline in youth baptisms ever.

speaker-0: Yeah, that's a staggering statement. You know, because I think sometimes the greatest efforts we give are well intentioned, with good motivations, but are not really producing the c the success that we desire. And I think that maybe it's because we really flip-flop the emphasis on the youth ministry, the youth pastor, the youth events. And we haven't emphasized the role of the home, the role of parents in in the lives of of children and in the lives of young people. Yeah. I mean that's a staggering statistic because it is ⁓ interesting how much we have pushed youth ministry. And actually churches feel like they're not functioning if they don't have a youth pastor or if they don't have like biweekly youth events or they don't have some particular dedicated program like weekly for the young people. I'm not negating that some of those things are really helpful and really positive within a proper foundational ⁓ philosophy of family first. Yeah, exactly.

speaker-1: We're having a chicken and an egg conversation. Exactly. You mentioned earlier we've developed a consumer mindset, especially for our young people. You want to weigh in on that a leave a a little bit more, even more forcefully? That's kind of why we did this content form. I I wanted us to have honest conversations about where the needs are. We're calling it this week in the word, but I want us to like what is the heartbeat? We're taking the word of God, we're applying it to our situation. We're looking at what we've done. So it even when we're introducing your position to our church, ⁓ we s I I gave three observations about our youth ministry approach, just collectively, obviously painting with very broad brushes, but we're using statistics, right? Number one, I said that American church's approach to youth ministry is unbiblical. And we're gonna have a conversation about that. Number two, I even said the American church's approach to youth ministry is anathetical to Scripture. And it is one thing to say it is not found in Scripture. It is another to say that it goes beyond the bounds of Scripture.

speaker-0: It actually yeah, it's the opposite.

speaker-1: Right. And number three, obviously it isn't working. Right. But one of the things that is the heartbeat today, and we can flesh out those even more and I hope to, is this consumer mindset.

speaker-0: Yeah, let me just jump off first of all the the point that you make about the fact that it's not even working. Right. Which is interesting because the whole point of consumerism is pragmatism. Yep. The whole reason consumerism is so popular is because the goal of consumerism is to be successful, is to make it happen, to make it work. And what's interesting is that it's not working. Yeah. So we're not seeing young people as as you stat statistics you've given. are proving we're not seeing young people, many of them live for the Lord. So what's happened is I feel like over over a a lot of years there's been such an emphasis on attracting. This is not just in youth, but I do think especially in youth, in youth ministry. And there's such a balance for us as Christian ministers because we want to do things that are right. We want to do things that are fun. We want to do things that ⁓ young people enjoy. I mean, anybody that's been around me or you knows that we we we don't we're not saying you can't have any of that stuff. How

speaker-1: How many teen camps, for example, have you preached?

speaker-0: ⁓ yeah. Probably several hundred. Yep. Me too. Yeah. Over the years. Yep. Many camps across the country. So we're we're all in on stuff like that. We love we love having fun. But it ⁓ but it's all about what is the purpose of what you're doing and what is the foundational reasoning behind what you're choosing to do. And so I feel like what what has happened is that we've swung the pendulum in a lot of cases to the fact that we've gotta have all of this stuff. And there's a list of things that, you know, you could That youth pastors would talk about and youth ministries would would emphasize. We have to have all of this stuff so that young people will want to be there, so that they will ⁓ bring their friends. And we gotta build a bigger youth group. We gotta have more in attendance. And so as we have those kinds of talks and conversations, there's this intuitive emphasis being given upon a consumer mindset. Uh-huh. And sadly, what I think has happened is that parents have, I don't think intentionally done this, but I think in some ways they have relied on those elements, those things, so much so that some of them will not send their kids to a youth group if there's not those entertainment consumer things. We've literally had people tell us.

speaker-1: If my kid's not having fun

speaker-0: Th then what's the reason they're going?

speaker-1: Yeah. And in fact we've even had conversations where it's you should preach shorter and play more. Yep.

speaker-0: Quite literally. Can change everything so that they're happy. Yeah. And that that is just playing right into a false philosophy of the world. So my whole, you know, as I've thought about this a lot as as I was approaching the the role that I have here as family pastor, I I really believe there needs to be a mindset shift for parents, which will ultimately produce some more success in their young people. And that mindset Mindset shift is I'm not going to church because that church does all this for me. And does all this for my kids. In other words, I'm picking the church because they have all of these programs. And if they don't have all these programs, I'm gonna go find another church. That's the consumer mindset. And they need to shift their mindset from that to what is what is the church doing for to train me as a parent to be the leader and the disciple maker for my children. And that is s may seem like a small nuanced difference in thinking. But it is it has huge ramifications for the future of your families. ⁓ of our families.

speaker-1: Let let me ask you some questions and i and to play and pull pull on your heart strings here so you can kinda launch on these at whose job is it to evangelize children?

speaker-0: Well, the Bible makes this very clear that of course if the children are born into a Christian family and really parents are responsible. Okay. Parents are responsible for their children's faith, ⁓ leading them to the faith. Parents are responsible to decide.

speaker-1: That was my next question. Whose job is it to evangelize children? Mama dad. Whose job is it to disciple their children?

speaker-0: Mom and dad. Mom and dad. And the reason they pick the church that they go to is the church is assisting them. Now remembering also Ephesians six four says even s more specifically, and you fathers. So that's a whole nother discussion. That that is a part two family stuff because the the attack of masculinity ultimately doesn't just affect the marriage, it affects the training of children because if the if the dad's not taking leadership in the home with his wife, he's

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: Also not taking leadership in the home with discipling his children. And the dad is supposed to be the leader, the spiritual leader in the home. And the mom is is of course helping with that, but the dad's supposed to be the leader. And nowhere do we find that it is the church's responsibility to disciple the family.

speaker-1: So what is our job? ⁓

speaker-0: Our job is to disciple all believers through the preaching and teaching of the word, through edification and evangelism, as we preach and teach the word of God, that we strengthen the people who then go to their homes and they take the same truths that are deeply now rooted in their lives and they invest it in the relationships in the home. So ultimately we are responsible to help them. So we're responsible to help them.

speaker-1: So you could say, as we've been saying, our job is to partner with parents, not to replace them.

speaker-0: Absolutely. Yeah. I would say just as we're partnering with any believer in any other responsibility, they can't really blame the church for the bad decisions they're making in other areas of their of their life. But it sure seems like often parents that are losing their children blame the Christian ministries that they thought were supposed to be helping their children. And often it's well, it's that Christian school or that youth pastor or that church. Where you did this, you're pushing my kids away from church. Well, it's not my job to bring them to church, and it's not my job to keep them at church and to do everything to to make sure they're satisfied in church. That's the parents' job.

speaker-1: I mean we've had conversations where it's I I can't sit with my kids during a message. They have to go to a separate time, you know, just even during the Sunday school hour, I'm thinking. Right. I I don't you know, and if you don't do that you've cancelled youth group.

speaker-0: Yeah, right. I think that again it's it it's kind of part of what's happening in our culture as well that child parents aren't taking the responsibility as they should. And there's a lot of blame shifting that goes on, which is rooted in pride. But the greatest gift that God has given to us as parents is our children. And I can only speak for myself because ⁓ my own children. I I don't want to make excuses for my children. I want to take responsibility for my children. It's my job as dad with my wife. Mom and dad are working together. It is our job to take what God has graciously given to us and steward those opportunities, steward those relationships. And I think part of the problem is parents really aren't serious about it. They're not as serious about it as they really should be. And they want to blame other people for what's happening in their kids. And yet the scripture tells us that kids are always a reflection of their parents.

speaker-1: So we have a problem in this culture. Statistics give that to us. We have a sin far problem in our heart. The word of God tells us that. More and more often, you are experiencing this too, just in your minister to teenagers, they're coming or young people, they're coming from broken homes. And there might be some listening to this and they're saying, But we have broken homes. How can we partner with a broken home? Like how are you supposed to put the family first if the family you're talking about is broken? What do you do? What do you do?

speaker-0: Yeah, and that's where I do think the church steps in and does a lot to help repair broken situations. As you and I both know, we're we're facing that. As as we are talking about and emphasizing here at Faith Baptist so much about the family, what's happening is God is exposing things that we can graciously step in and and help with. Ultimately we're not responsible for the choices that are being made. We're but we are definitely carrying and shepherding families. And I do think that we we do a lot of counseling, we do a lot of encouraging and exhorting and showing the word of God to get people back to to God's way. And and the fact just the facts are this if you don't do God's way in the family, it's gonna be broken. That's just the God God has given us his way. And so the whole goal that we have as pastors, then for me as a family pastor and of course with your excellent preaching is that we lift up the word of God. We show God's character, we show God's way. Because ultimately it's being in God's way. It's like Psalm 1, Blessed is a man that walketh not in the council of the ungodly. Who does who does God bless? He blesses those that delight in the law of the Lord. And so there's no easy fix in situations that are broken. There's no easy fix. And sometimes, as I've been saying ⁓ recently to one of our families that we're seeing some really positive, wonderful things, it took you a long time to get it broken, and it's gonna take a little time to get it. Back to where it needs to be. If the journey to a broken home or to a broken relationship takes not just months but years, sometimes it's gonna take more than months. It's gonna take a a long pattern of of consistency of following God's way to put something back together. And sometimes sometimes families cannot be fully recovered back together. But it is. But I've seen some beautiful things through the years.

speaker-1: And it doesn't change the ideal. Exactly. Like the the idea. Obviously, as you just demonstrated from Genesis one, God started with the creation of man immediately was the creation of the home. Exactly. This is God's ideal. And it was marred by sin at the beginning, but it never changed the ideal for our Lord when defining marriage. Yeah. They just asked about it, Well, what is marri you know, he defines marriage and he goes back to

speaker-0: Doesn't mean you don't talk about the ideal. Exactly.

speaker-1: the creation account and says now this is what the home is supposed to look like

speaker-0: Multiple times we have not only Jesus but the apostles in the New Testament referring to the Genesis account. Yep. That this is God's natural order. And just like we would say, ⁓ Genesis one shows us the natural order for gender roles. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We don't believe in more genders than male and female. Mm-hmm. Based upon the Genesis one, same text. Same text. Also say the same thing. We can't make excuses just because there are a lot of out of bounds situations or

speaker-1: Right. We get

speaker-0: broken situations that we that we kind of lower the expectation of what Genesis says concerning man and woman together in marriage, leave father and mother, cleave to your wife, multiply, replenish the earth. The the ideal is still there. That has to be lifted up. You can't reach the vision or reach the goal if you don't give people the goal. Yep. Now I wanna say this very clearly. This does not mean that we don't have sympathy and empathy and hope and and tears and broken hearts for people that are in situations that are desperate. Yeah. And that's w that's what one of my greatest joys is is to work with people that are in those situations where we can say, though it is broken and we can't go back maybe and and change some it can maybe and not even be able to fix it. What is the hope and the goal and and the vision going forward from now and how can you invest in your children that are in this situation? Those kind of things.

speaker-1: And by God's grace and to his glory, there are examples of people who are themselves now as a young couple starting a home and they may have come from a broken home, but the ideal from God's word is before them and they're pushing forward. I'm gonna read this is another book on on ⁓ marriage. It says, If if we believe this, talking about family being first, then why is it that we have done everything in our power not to allow that to happen? Right. If the people in your church this is what the author says, if the people in your church are not tithing, you don't start a tithing ministry for them. You simply teach e what the Bible expects. Right. If it works for tithing, why don't we think it will work with discipleship for the next generation?

speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, that's a very good point. That that that's an excellent point. Because what we're trying to do is we're trying to we're trying to solve the problem with with a format or a methodology that actually adds to the problem. So we can and I do believe that many people have recognized that the same issues we're talking about, but we gotta recognize that the the methodologies we choose must ⁓ must be biblical and not contribute to more of the problem. We don't wanna we don't wanna give credence to this idea that it's the church's responsibility to train the family. Yeah. To raise the kids.

speaker-1: Kids. No, we have a youth pastor. We have a youth pastor. Andrew Starr is amazing. We're so glad that God brought him here. In fact, when he came, we we in sequence announced we're gonna bring on Mark Herbster family pastor. In your job description, it demonstrated that you're gonna help us look towards a youth pastor. And you did. And ⁓ we kept a budget for that line the whole time. But our youth pastor philosophy is a little different. Why is that?

speaker-0: It's interesting because when I was communicating with Andrew before he knew we were looking, I was already sensing that he was he was experiencing in in youth ministry some of the very problems we're talking about. Yep. And coming to the same conclusions about youth ministry and church ministry, that the primary goal is to help the parents. And I think Andrew would tell you that. The primary goal of youth ministry is to help the parents. And and we We believe this. If our youth ministry is not helping the parents, then the parents have the privilege and the responsibility to say, Well, they're not gonna be in that youth ministry. That is I mean, we're if we're gonna say they're responsible, they they get the choice. And we we can be okay with that. But I I find that what we're doing right now is we're seeing that that there were parents that maybe weren't involved in the youth ministry. They've had and now they're they're coming in because they know that we're giving them the authority. They know we're giving them the responsibility.

speaker-1: And we're not just giving the

speaker-0: Assisting them, we're just partnering with them.

speaker-1: With Andrew's addition here now, allowing us to drive further towards this philosophy, that has freed you up to do something that until that time, his addition you haven't been able to do, right? Including even this summer.

speaker-0: Yeah, right. Adding adding a specified family discussion type class, family conversations is what we're calling it. Yeah. Where we can we can really have fellowship one with another as families, where we can emphasize these these truths. I do think part of it is just what we emphasize is what we get. Yeah. And so the more we talk about it, the more people are like, ⁓ yeah, this is a priority. And that's what we want. Because let's face it, the families are not at our church every day. So We want to lift this up so that every day that they're living, they're thinking, families first. Families first. Under God, under my relationship with God, the greatest and most important relationships are in our homes. And what what I'm hopeful of is that we will be talking about the ideal so much that we will prevent more of those broken situations. Yep. Because that's the goal is to prevent by God's grace and his power. That parents would rise up and do God's way and that we wouldn't see broken homes, like broken marriages, rebellious kids.

speaker-1: It's never too late to do the right thing.

speaker-0: Yeah. Kids who graduate and then they don't even want to be with mom and dad. They don't even want to come to the same church with them. They some of them aren't even in church at all. They some of them are completely disowning their family. And it's the we the whole goal of talking about the ideals and lifting up the biblical pr principles is to prevent those things from happening. And only again, all of us need God's grace and all of us humbly need to walk with the Lord because you and I are both still in this process. We still have kids at home too.

speaker-1: And frankly, that makes it a scary conversation for us to have because not only are we do we still have kids in the home, but as pastors, the expectations for our homes come with a great deal of weight and responsibility. How can Timothy Paul gets a letter to Timothy, how can you manage the household well of God if you can't manage your own home? Yep. So there's an expectation for pastors and and perhaps this is another part two. Now I'm thinking part three for this conversation. Sure. Because If we're being honest, I think some of our crises that we face in our churches are because there's a crisis in our pulpits. Missed in the missed in the pulpit fog in the pews. I mean, we if you've got a pastor whose home is in crisis, you're gonna have a crisis with your families in your church.

speaker-0: And there are a lot of occasions where if a crisis is happening in the pastor's family, where obviously the family's not gonna be emphasized in the pulpit.

speaker-1: And there's a qualification. My point in bringing that up is there's a qualification in the New Testament. This is clearly

speaker-0: Which does make it a priority to Kent. Yeah. Families first. Families first for even us as pastors. And that's a challenge for us. Ferry to have the conversation and for probably for many years, you know, we maybe even I don't know if you feel this way. I I struggled a little bit about it because I I hadn't seen all the success that I wanted to see yet in my kids, and I was afraid to talk about it. And I think that could create more of a problem. I appreciate your leadership talking about the family, even while you have young children.

speaker-1: It's it's why it's scary to have this conversation.

speaker-0: It is a little bit scary to think about. And only God will bring them through. And it but we need to humbly and graciously say, We're in this journey with you folks. We're we're not we're not telling you how it's supposed to happen. We're with you. We're we're we're doing this too. Right.

speaker-1: And we're we're passionate about it.

speaker-0: Absolutely. Because our kids matter. I mean, y we we'll all get emotional if we just talk about what we want our kids to accomplish for the glory of God, for his good and for his glory and for his church. And that that's why it's so worth it to talk about this.

speaker-1: This has been, Mark, for our church and for you and me and for you, especially a family pastor, this has been a battle and you've we're on the f I I feel like s ⁓ many times we're on the front line of that battle. Right. Because we're saying something that really strikes for most people within our circles as radical.

speaker-0: I don't know why it's radical. It's it seems biblical. So I'm not sure why it's radical. It's just a little bit of a different it's a different emphasis than what a lot of traditional independent Baptist churches have been giving for years. Programs, programs, programs. Just get our kids to the church. Just send ⁓ to camp. Just have ⁓ in the youth group and surely they'll succeed. And then blaming the church if it doesn't work. Like, well, the youth pastor didn't say enough and he didn't confront ⁓ enough, and he didn't spend enough time with them. And

speaker-1: And now it's not working.

speaker-0: He didn't schedule appointments with my son. Or and and I'm just, you know, these are just idea you know, some things that I've heard. Yeah. And ⁓ and it shouldn't be a radical shift in our thinking to say, parents are responsible and we're there to help you. Yeah. And we we wanna help you, but parents are responsible. And I think the more responsibility parents take, the greater success we're gonna start to see as they build their families on the on the things of God.

speaker-1: It wasn't fun enough. There's so much more we could say, and probably should. And I'm I'm glad that we've even taken the brief time we've had today. I'm gonna give Richard Baxter the last word. Yeah, he has a book ⁓ where he talks to pastors about the need for them to be pure and honest and upright even in their own homes. And here's what he says to pastors as he trains them. If you are ungodly and teach not your families the fear of God, nor contradict the sins of the company you are in.

speaker-0: It's a good one to do that.

speaker-1: Nor turn the stream of their vain talking, nor deal with them plainly about their salvation. They will take it as if you preach to them that such things are needless, and that they may boldly do as well as you. It's a f it's a frontline war that we're facing. But I think I'm I'm with you a hundred thousand percent. This is God's battle. Absolutely. And I'd I'd rather pick up my swords and be in his battle than to have my sword on the sidelines and not be part of it.

speaker-0: Passing the truth to the next generation has gotta be such a priority for us. And that's why we're emphasizing the family. Because it's not about just this generation, it's the next and the next.

speaker-1: And and I would tell you that maybe in our next one we can talk about how having this as our focus makes us an evangelistic church. That that's where evangelism starts. If you put the home first, then this is where evangelism begins as well. And there's so many more things to that. But I'm so glad you can have it. I hope and pray this will be a help to others as they look.

speaker-0: Church. Absolutely. Yeah.

speaker-1: If you need more information, you can contact our church. We'd love to speak to you. Pastor Mark here is even this summer having some family conversations right here during the 930 AM hour. We'd love to have you join us for those in the fireplace room. And ⁓ we'll be dealing, I'm sure, more pertinently on that topic as well. But thank you for joining us. We hope you'll tune in again next time.

speaker-0: Thank you for joining us today. For more information about Faith Baptist Church, visit us at www.fbctailors.org.

speaker-1: W dot.