I recently read a parenting book that was literally one of the best parenting books I have ever read it’s called Gospel Powered Parenting. (Here is a review my friend Dustin Nickerson did of it.) I loved it because it focused on the Gospel and Jesus not simply behavior modification. I also loved how it called men to be fathers. We have an epidemic in our country of fatherlessness. Our homes and our country are in dire need of men to be what God has called them to be. I believe the same thing to be true about mothers but I don’t see the need as severe. The difference between men and women is that women step up when men step out and society is pushing men far to many of us are advocating our responsibilities.
In working with kids you see the evidence of fatherlessness everywhere. Fathers who have left home for good, fathers who have checked out mentally and emotionally but are still there physically. Godly men in our culture have to do more than just be good fathers to their kids the need is to great they need to be fathers to their kids and to someone else. It doesn’t really matter who are next president is if we don’t have a renewal of the Gospel and fatherhood our country will never recover from it’s self inflicted wounds.
Here is a quote from Gospel Powered Parenting about the role fathers play in determining if kids will end up being church attenders.
“God holds fathers accountable for parenting because he has given them inordinate influence over their children. The Bible presumes, in the language of the Puritans, that fathers are a mirror in which their children look to put on their spiritual dress.
The June 2003 issue of Touchstone magazine published the conclusions of a Swiss study that confirm this proposition. It examined the connection between a parent’s church attendance and the future likelihood that his or her children would also attend church. (below are their findings in graph form.)
4 comments On The influence of parents’ church attendance on their children.
I find it very interesting that the children's attendance is higher when the father's is regular & the mother's is irregular than when both parents are regular. However, the stats do prove why God set the father as the spritual head of the family. We need more men to step up & lead in the home & the church. And we need more women who will express that need to men instead of just stepping in to get the job done. Women need to support men in doing the job they were designed by God to do. Even in the secular world, it is very difficult to find a strong role model for fathers.
Think about TV fathers…has there been a good, strong father figure on TV since Bill Cosby? Now Cosby was goofy & made mistakes, but when things were serious, he knew how to be a good dad. Most dads on TV today are bumbling idiots who have no clue how to be a parent. Even worse, many shows that focus on families today don't even have an active father role in the storyline.
So thankful that I married a man who is willing to be the father that he is called to be.
Amanda it's a huge problem. Unfortunately not one that we discuss often and when we do discuss it is more in the context of a lost cause rather than based biblically with practical solutions. I am grateful your husband is being the father he should be encourage him to never lose sight of that. He is replaceable everywhere in life the only place he isn't replaceable is as a husband and father.
I highly agree and spoke about these stats after I read this book. It really sparked one Uncle to take charge with his single neice and her daughter. Now they have dinner together on tuesday nights and he does a devotion with her. Need more of this happening!
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