Let me put all my cards on the table, here. The Good Shepherd Band is the worship band at the church I serve. The members of the band are all my friends. I know that I’m biased. You don’t have to tell me.

There’s a reason I put this post in a category called, “Look, Mom!”

But if you’d just indulge me for a few minutes while I ooh and aah over their new Christmas album, I’d appreciate it. Thanks.

The record is called Repeat the Sounding Joy. It features some traditional carols that you know, and some older songs you may have never heard of. The band brings fresh imagination and robust instrumentation to every track. Hauntingly beautiful at points, at points so full of joy and energy you’ll be unsatisfied unless you’re singing along at full volume. It’s really like nothing I’ve ever heard before.

One of the beautiful things about the album is that there’s really something here for everyone. Repeat the Sounding Joy definitely has its quirky parts. But on the whole, there’s something for the whole family—including tastefully done songs that feature our children’s choir.

If you’re like me, I’m hard-pressed every year to find good, quality Christmas music. Part of the reason for this is that the genre is so polluted with superficial, commercial product that lacks the sense of reverence and real joy that are truly appropriate to celebrating the birth of our Savior. I’m always on a search for something that is worshipful.

Don’t get me wrong, I think there’s a place for Sinatra, Fitzgerald, and Vince Guaraldi. But that’s not the point.

If you’re looking for music to play around your house this holiday season that honors Christ and directs your heart and mind to worship our Savior, I highly commend Repeat the Sounding Joy to you. You won’t be disappointed.

The entire album can be listened to and purchased here.

My question is—what things would you suggest we do to find these opportunities?! Do we need to move? If the invitation is not there to witness godly families in their home, and we have asked for it, but not received it, do we keep asking? . . . Your advice to your friend is wonderful, but what would you tell that friend to do if they did not have access to a church like yours?

I expect this is a pretty common response, so let me take it from a couple different angles.

First, I’m always skeptical of the “Well, that’s great for you, but we don’t have a church like yours,” response. It betrays a mistrust of God’s provision for you and bitterness over the circumstances He’s called you to. It’s not healthy.

Whenever you find yourself complaining about the church God has placed you in, you need to carefully examine yourself. God is wise in where He places us, and while we need to be wise and discerning about which church we commit to, we are not called to sit in judgment on the people of God. You don’t come to the body of Christ with a consumer-oriented, me-and-mine-first mentality. You come as a child of God who has been called to a community of faith by your heavenly Father.

No church is perfect and no church is going to be everything you think it needs to be. Or everything you feel like it needs to be for you and your family. That’s partly why you’re there. You’ve been called to build up the body, and you’ve been given gifts that allow you to see where needs need to be met. As you submit to the leadership of your church your gifts will be used to help the church grow in godliness.

This does not mean you become the youth group nag. Many, many people pick churches based on what they think will best serve their children. And then spend their time trying exercise the same control over the children and youth programs of the church that they have in their families. Or complaining about every little thing that doesn’t meet their purely subjective standards for how the church should serve their family. Which, of course, is ridiculous. Suffocating.

You need to understand that God is kind and generous and kids are resilient. You don’t need to find the perfect church. You just need to find a good church that loves God and loves Scripture. Otherwise, you’re just a part of the problem. You’re another family that’s not serving, helping, leading, showing hospitality.

God has placed you where you live and He’s going to provide the means you need to become good parents—if you’re faithful in seeking them out. You don’t need to fear or freak out. You need to trust God and persist in pursuing good families to be around, good things to read to help you, outside friends and family that you trust for counsel, and lots and lots of prayer.

If there truly isn’t a good church in your area with healthy, hospitable, and willing families, then God will be your teacher as you serve what church He has given you. And perhaps you’ll become one of those families for others. No church is perfect and God has a way of compensating for circumstances with those who are faithfully pursuing Him.

But the last thing I’d say to you is that nothing is more important than being in a place where you can be a part of a church body that can help you. Especially if you’re broken. Because the destruction of the family is so widespread, there truly are areas of the country where this is extremely difficult. Or rather, there are precious few places where it’s possible. And there are some families that need more help than others—that aren’t equipped to make it in a weaker church.

Part of the difficulty in making a decision to move is that it’s awfully hard to tell how bad things are if you still aren’t sure what healthy is—if you’re too twisted to really be able to see how wrong things are. If you feel that lost, if you truly feel like you’re drowning, then getting real help is a top priority. Move if you need to. And soon. Go where you know there is a healthy church with good and godly families.

It would be better for you and your children to live in a trailer park on a janitor’s salary in a good church where you’re marriage and home are healthy than to drown where you live now without the proper help and care. Because in the end, you’re going to stand before God accountable for your children. If people move for jobs, why not for a church? Your souls and the souls of your children are much more precious than that.

Just be careful! If you’re just the average malcontent, the church you move for will soon disappoint you. No church is perfect. And then what happens when you’re let down by the “ideal” church? Are you going to become so bitter with God that you find no room among the people of God? Quite possibly.

And who will suffer then? The very people you’re pretending to protect: your children. They need to grow up around imperfect Christians. They need to learn to love sinners.

But if you just feel inadequate and are longing for guidance, then be encouraged. That’s normal. In the end, you won’t be good parents until you realize that you can’t be good parents without the help, power, and guidance of the Holy Spirit.

That means that you need to hit walls. So you should be grateful when God makes you hit walls and pushes you to trust Him more. And you should trust Him to continue to provide for you. The church you’re at is probably just what you need, and being there is His gift to you.

I was extremely encouraged by this passage from Watson speaking of the ministry of John the Baptist:

Learn what kind of ministry is likely to do most good, namely, that which works upon the consciences of men. John the Baptist lifted up his voice like a trumpet; he preached the doctrine of repentance with power: “Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 3:2).

He came hewing and cutting down men’s sins, and afterwards preached Christ to them. First he poured in the vinegar of the law, then the wine of the gospel. This was the preaching which made men studiously seek after heaven. John did not so much preach to please as to profit; he chose rather to discover men’s sins than to show his own eloquence.

The best mirror is not that which is most guilded, but that which shows the truest face. That preaching is to be preferred which makes the truest discovery of men’s sins and shows them their hearts.

-Thomas Watson, Heaven Taken By Storm (paragraph breaks mine)

Preaching to the consciences of men is so very difficult. It’s the exact thing that will make you hated as John the Baptist was hated (and eventually executed). And the difficulty is compounded by the number of ear-tickling preachers that are out there assuring people that their sins are not real sins after all. Why would someone stay and have their conscience afflicted by you, when they can easily go down the street and have their ears tickled?

Yet this is the kind of preaching that God uses. John was hated. But his ministry was blessed with fruitfulness.

Now, the ridiculous thing here, is that most true Christians will immediately recognize that it is when their consciences have been most afflicted by a courageous preacher that they’ve known the grace of God most deeply and been most helped in their pursuit of holiness. It’s certainly true of me. But somehow, when I get up to preach, I’m tempted to doubt this truth. And if I’m not careful, I will rob my hearers of the grace of sitting under a soul-searching ministry. Which is why I really appreciate what Watson said next:

It is the greatest mercy to have a soul-searching ministry. If one had a desperate wound, he would desire to have it searched to the bottom. Who would not be content to have their souls searched so they may have them saved?

In other words, here Watson is encouraging and teaching the people of God to love their pastors when they preach to their consciences. How many times have you been taught to love your pastor for afflicting your conscience? How many times have you been told to encourage him when he lands a heavy blow? How many times have you been exhorted to encourage your pastor to drive the scalpel deeper?—that you need him to really nail your sins so that you won’t try to escape them?

I remember one of my first Sunday morning sermons when I was training for the pastorate. A godly older woman came up to me afterwards and thanked me for preaching. And then she told me something I’ve never forgotten: “Jake, you did a fine job. But I wish you would have driven your point home harder. You left my heart so many ways to avoid seeing my sin, that I nearly got away without tasting the grace of Christ. Cut off my exits so I have to turn to Jesus. That’s when you’ll be really helpful.”

What a gentle rebuke and what encouragement! Your pastors need that kind of encouragement. Because it’s hard. It is tempting to live to please men rather than God. So thank them for seeking out your sin and encourage them when they’re weak.

The video has been making its rounds on Facebook because a lot of people seem to think it’s funny or cute. But the truth is it’s shameful. I know that no kid is going to respond to something like this with perfect grace. But I know if my kids responded like many of the kids in this video, I would not have laughed.

This behavior is not cute. It is not funny. It is shameful. We should cringe when we watch these kids. We should not laugh. We should grieve.

What does it say about us when we celebrate the blatant disrespect of parents? When we laugh and treat as trivial the sinful responses of children who have only ever been indulged and never loved enough to be disciplined? Who have never been taught contentment and forgiveness? The Bible makes it clear that children that get their own way are a shame to their parents (Pr. 29:15). And children who are not disciplined are not loved (Pr. 13:24; 19:18).

Our acceptance of behavior like this betrays our contempt for God the Father. It betrays our hatred for our children. It betrays our own selfishness and unwillingness to submit ourselves to God’s good discipline. It betrays our own insecurities about our parenting. One of the reasons a video like this can gain traction is because normalization is a (weak) salve for a guilty conscience. In other words, the more failures there are like us, the more justified we feel in our failings.

So what to do?

First, we must reject the kind of unbelief that takes this behavior for granted. It does not have to be this way. Our children don’t have to be little monsters and tyrants. If we lay hold of the promises of God and are faithful to shepherd our children as God has taught us, we have every reason to expect our children to respond graciously in situations like these.

We also need to realize that the responses of our children in similar circumstances will most frequently reflect our own reactions in similar circumstances. How do you respond when something doesn’t go your way? When dinner isn’t on the table when you get home? Or when the in-laws show up and wreck the evening you had planned? Or when someone backs into your car? Do you respond with grace? Do you know contentment? Is the Gospel so real to you that you’re ready forgive those who take advantage of you or use you? Your children are watching and learning.

Training our children in righteousness is something that requires self-discipline on our parts as parents as well as discipline of our children. And a lot of faith and prayer. Because in the end, no matter how hard we work, no matter how much we speak to our children of God, the Holy Spirit must change their hearts. Which means we must work hard in faith, addressing the heart-issues we see in ourselves and our children with the gospel, knowing that the Holy Spirit uses parents and spankings and a host of other means to accomplish this work.

In light of my last post, I wanted to say a word or two about radioactive soil and mutant vegetables.

Fathers are, by definition, the most shaping and dominating influences in any home. Make no mistake, the home you grew up in was dominated by your father. If he was a good father who honored God, who loved and honored your mother, who disciplined and nurtured you, then your childhood was dominated by a sweet and tender mercy of God. If he was cruel and abusive, you were dominated by his cruelty. If he was present bodily, but abdicated his responsibilities, you were dominated by his abdication. If he was absent, his absence was the most dominating and felt reality in your home.

There’s no escaping the dominance of fathers. He was, by nature, the head of the home you grew up in—whether you or your mother or your siblings liked it or not. This has to do with the way God the Father ordered His creation. And because it is God’s order, it is very good.

But because of sin, the absence and/or abdication of fathers in our culture is the most dominating reality that most of us have to deal with. It is the source of the nuclear meltdown. As a college pastor, I am constantly faced with the effects of this meltdown. My job might best be described as wading through Fukushima or Chernobyl in a hazmat suit, picking up the pieces. Except my job is much more impossible than that. I have to somehow reverse the mutations I encounter:

Young men who have grown up without a father’s affection and have therefore eroticized and perverted their craving for healthy masculine affection into homosexual sin. Young men who wince like wounded puppies when you pat them on the back—either because they’ve never been touched before, or because they’ve only known the back of the hand. Young women who have grown up fearing and hating men because their fathers were untrustworthy, and have instead decided they must do everything in their power to never, ever be let down by a man again. Young women so hungry for attention and affection that they prostitute their bodies to deadbeats and losers. And the list goes on.

This is the world we live in, and it’s because the central, defining reality of our lives is father hunger. Nature abhors a vacuum, so in the absence of godly fathers, we have given ourselves to every perverse thing that comes along promising to give us the discipline and affection we never received at home. This can take the form of abusive boyfriends, university professors, and bloated government bureaucracies.

How in the world can this be overcome?

It can’t be overcome until we return to the Father from whom every father gets his name. We must return to God the Father through Jesus His Son if we’re to have any hope of recovering something approximating a healthy home. Which means we must repent of our rebellion against His good fatherly rule.

This is a problem that goes back to the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve cast off the authority of God to worship Satan and themselves. Eating the fruit was a rejection of God’s kind and benevolent rule. He had given them every good thing to enjoy. But despising the one restriction He placed upon them, they exchanged His good and generous rule for the tyranny of sin, Satan, and self. The Fall of man secured the demise of the home as God intended it.

So if we’re to know something of God’s Fatherhood, we must return to Him as prodigal sons, repentant and humbled. We don’t deserve any kindness from Him. We don’t deserve good fathers or families. We are the sons of Satan (John 8:44), children of wrath (Eph. 2:3). But He stands ready to receive, forgive, and pardon all who return to Him. And all who come He adopts into His family, the Church, the Household of Faith. He gives us His Holy Spirit who transforms us into His likeness.

Much of this Holy Spirit wrought work comes through the regular work of the church. It comes through pastors and elders preaching, teaching, and modeling godliness. It comes through living life together under the rule of Christ.

So recovering a healthy understanding of fatherhood in our culture is the product of life together in the household of faith—the church. And men and women who know God and have been given authority in His Church must preach and teach and model godly fatherhood and family relationships in such a way that those who look at us see the Father—and are drawn to Him instead of to counterfeits. This is one of the many ways we’re called to be salt and light.

Because, as dominating a reality as our earthly fathers were, they were only meant to be a signpost pointing us to God. In the end, all of our fathers failed—the difference is just a difference in degree. Next to God all dads are deadbeats. No father has truly represented God, and we all must turn to Him if we are to be healed. And the good news is that He is a good Father, quick to forgive and eager to heal.

The first thing I’d say to you is this: there’s no substitution for good models of godly homes. Some things can’t simply be taught. They have to be caught. Which is to say, there’s no substitution for growing up in a godly home.

If you’ve not grown up in a godly home, you are fundamentally twisted in your understanding of what a home should be. And twisted men and women have a tendency to twist sound biblical principles and see them in the light of their own twistedness. Especially when they read them in books or even hear them in sermons. They’re missing the filters they need to help them translate and apply what they are taught in a healthy way. That’s one of the many reasons why the church is so important in discipleship.

For many young couples, telling them to raise their children to be godly is like telling them to make bricks without straw. What does that even mean? Where do I start? Huh? Giving them good resources on parenting is the equivalent of giving them a big pile of straw to work with. Which is a good thing. But the problem is actually much deeper than that…

The real problem is they’ve never seen anyone make a brick before. In fact, they might not even know what a brick looks like. They’ll do better with straw than without it, but unless there are experienced and skilled workers around that can show them how to make a good, solid, lasting brick, you might be in for a surprise when you see the finished product.

All that to say, as much or more than you need to read and pray and study, you need to spend time in the homes of families in your church that are worthy of imitation—that offer you something to aspire to. Because as good or bad as either of the homes the two of you grew up in were, I have no doubt that what you’re aiming for is something altogether different, something you never had. You need to seek out as many opportunities to “catch” godly parenting as possible.

There’s one last thing I’d say—and this follows closely with our conversation a couple weeks ago and my recommendation of Reforming Marriage to you. The bedrock of Christian parenting is a happy and holy marriage. It doesn’t matter what you read or think or apply about parenting if you don’t love your wife and if she does not honor and submit to you. If your marriage isn’t healthy, if you’re not consistently working towards being a better picture of Christ and the Church, there will be no health in your parenting. The very first priority in raising godly children is cultivating a godly marriage.

If your home is a garden and your children the plants, your marriage is the soil. You can have the best tools in the world, the best seeds, the right amount of sun and shade and water, but if the soil isn’t rich and fertile it’s hopeless. And most modern American homes are like gardens planted in the wake of a nuclear meltdown. The marriages (if they even remain intact) are radioactive and the children grow up with two heads, glowing in the dark, and thinking that anything approximating “normal” is an exotic monstrosity.

So healthy kids start with healthy marriages. Which, among other things, means your wife needs to feel more like a wife than a mom. It means that you have to be making sacrifices to provide and protect her and the kids. It means you need to lead and act in your home as the authority that God has called you to be. It means that your wife’s respect for you and submission to you must be real and evident, obvious and sweet.

I can’t say it enough: a healthy and happy marriage is the seedbed for happy and holy children. It’s prerequisite. It provides the security and the freedom they need to flourish. And it establishes the reality of the Gospel in your home in such a way that your kids can’t escape it.

Marriage is meant to be a picture to your children and to the world of the Gospel—of Christ and His love for the Church. And your marriage is the best indicator of how much you actually believe the Gospel. Don’t lie to your children. See to it that they’re not growing up in the home of hypocrites.

Of course, there is so much more that can be said here. But having said all of that, there are some excellent resources I’d like to point you to. You’ve already mentioned Shepherding a Child’s Heart—which is a great place to start. Let me add a couple more books to your list:

When Pastor Tripp came and did his seminars at ClearNote a couple years ago, he told us Instructing a Child’s Heart is just as important, or more important, than Shepherding a Child’s Heart. One of the very important things that Tripp does is draw a distinction between formative and corrective discipline. Shepherding a Child’s Heart emphasizes corrective discipline. Instructing a Child’s Heart emphasizes formative discipline. So it’s helpful to have the two of them side by side.

Doug Wilson’s Standing on the Promises is also a very helpful book that makes a good companion to his Reforming Marriage. He’s more to the point than Tripp, focuses more on parenting in faith, trusting God’s promises for your children, and creating a family culture that honors God—what Tripp calls “shaping influences.” Helpful.

Ginger Plowman’s Don’t Make Me Count to Three is another good book. I haven’t read it, but Amanda likes it a lot. She says the strength of the book is that it’s written by a mom for moms, and is much more focused on being practical—what does it actually look like to work out the principles of Shepherding a Child’s Heart? Plowman also has a chart of discipline issues, helpful Scriptures to apply, and good things to say to your kids called Wise Words for Moms. We know a lot of moms that keep this in the bathroom or wherever they most frequently discipline their children.

Finally, Rachel Jankovic has an excellent book called Loving the Little Years. It’s not really a practical book on parenting. It’s just an encouraging read for moms of small children. I read it and loved it. It helped me grow in my appreciation of Amanda and all of her hard work. And Amanda was greatly encouraged by it. Jankovic is Doug Wilson’s daughter and she’s written some awesome articles on motherhood here: http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/authors/rachel-jankovic