Homefrom the beginning, this seemed like such an awesome camp concept and we were excited to attend. Like most things worthy and Godly, it is no wonder that so much spiritual warfare has taken place, not just in our family, but also in many families in attendance or in leadership in the various ministries and churches partnered with St. Louis Family Camp. About 3 weeks prior to family camp, I found out that I would need to have surgery to repair a painful fissure or tear on my backside. The surgery is not necessarily dangerous, but because of the location, it is a very sore surgery with a long recovery time. Some other problems are that the drugs that you are on to fight pain, and the antibiotics that you are on to avoid infection all sort of work against you digestively. You can get bound up and that can be pretty uncomfortable in itself.
Well, all that hit me yesterday morning before we headed to family camp, and I just couldn’t imagine how it was going to work out, getting to family camp and also just surviving the discomfort and dealing with consitpation and pain of sitting. All those things weighed on me and tried to convince me that I just needed to stay home and forego attending family camp this year. I was 10 days out from surgery and could have used the I’m not well card. I could have. I would have. But my loving wife patiently convinced me of the reality of the spiritual warfare at work with me and with many others planning on attending camp. She showed me that while I could stay home, I would likely regret it later, and that I would not have experienced the impact of being here and learning from the great teachers and being encouraged and encouraging others in talking with other families in the midst of same struggles of raising a family that one day will ultimately place their hope and salvation in God.
After all that, we got out of the house by noon, but after 20 minutes, we realized that we had forgotten Kiana’s meds and we had to head back. Another notch in the let’s just stay home tree. I was still not feeling well and we had to drive into St. Louis (opposite direction from family camp) to get my new drug prescription which was a whole other issue of communication between doctor and pharmacy and patient. We finally got the prescription and by that time I felt that I could make it to camp with the 3 hour drive. Note that we left by noon, it was a 3 hour drive to camp and we arrived at camp at 6:15. We had a few stops and a few hiccups, but we finally made it. The trip down was gorgeous, with the exposed limestone cliffs and the flowing hills and the green fields and trees and the bailed hay ready to be picked up.
On arrival we quickly got everything thrown in our room and headed back out to the first session at 7pm with Voddie Baucham. Voddie made several good points last night and brought to light a lot of things that people that have not read “family driven faith” would likely not have been exposed to before. Here are some thoughts and notes I took…
Restoring the Family – the concept of family has been significantly changed in this modern age. We need to restore it and we cannot do that in isolation.
The basis for family driven faith, for bringing our children up with a biblical worldview can be found in Deuteronomy 6
Restoring the family is usually likened to returning to the golden age, like to the 1950’s. The 1950’s were not good.
10% of Christians have a biblical worldview – this is bad
51% of Christian Pastors have a biblical worldview – this is very bad
You can’t give or teach what you don’t have yourself.
We are currently losing 75-88% of our kids as they go to college.
Deuteronomy6 is multigenerational vision for families. - You, your sons and your son’s sons.
Today’s vision in America is Materialism. Make enough money to send your kids to a good school so that they can give their kids more than you gave your kids who got more than your parents gave you. It is all materialism mantra.
We need to fear God… how?
By keeping all his statutes and his commandments, all of our days.
We cannot do it or impart it thru “paint by numbers” spirituality. Faith by numbers.
We have been given what we need, the word of God. No action steps or silly methodology or innovation is needed.
Teach the Word & Magnify God
Why would we fear God? For what purpose?
That we may fear him and that we may have many days and that it would go well with us in the land.
This cannot be done in isolation. You cannot achieve this on your own. This has to be accomplished in Covenant Community. We fail to see our failures, our blindspots, others can help us. Do we want the help?
Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:5 on the greatest commandment. The greatest commandment is 1-4 and the second greatest commandment is 5-10.
We need to understand God’s Law since it is that which Jesus told us to obey. If we ourselves don’t understand it, then how will we teach our children.
Teaching our children what to do and what not to do without tying it to God and to His word accomplishes nothing but setting up of rules to be broken later when they leave our presence.
In Deuteronomy 6 it shows an awesome picture of how we are to raise our children and how we are to live. The things of God should be constantly on our lips and we should teach them to our children at all times in our lives together.
The problem is that the industrial revolution has changed all this. We don’t live together like we once did. Dad doesn’t work the nearby land or shop, mom has joined the workforce, kids are in school, being schooled by the government.
With less time together, how do we impart biblical worldviews to our children. How do we do that if we don’t know the bible ourself.
We must be aware that our current culture and our current lifestyles go against the grain of bringing up children that know God. So we must make hard decisions and efforts to see that we attend to this most important duty and responsibility of ours, given to us by God.
Saturday morning I woke up in a bit of pain at 7am, but was able to get it under control by about 10am with my meds and next dose at 9am. We made it a bit early to the worship celebration service and it was a great time of songs. Xander danced under my hand holding in the back of the gymnasium. We sang and had a good time. After that, Jason Zellmer taught some and led us through a prayer time for our families, for us as men to lead them and crying out to God to use our children in mighty ways.
After that, we had a 10:30 session on Enjoying your Marriage which was a great overview on how to enjoy your marriage and glorify God when so many people today struggle with the spouse they have and their level of satisfaction or happiness in marriage. Some important points were:
you must be spirit filled and willing to surrender your control
You must submit to one another.j
you must honor your God given role in marriage as a husband or a wife.
Know your differences – prophet, king, priest / what-where, how, who
husbands must be like Christ. Eph 5
die to self
suffer the most
take responsibility for what’s not your fault
forgive first
We must trust each other, respect the husband, love the wife
husbands must listen, wives must speak up
a Godly Husband facilitates and creates an environment where conversations can be open and honest.
Husbands set the tone of the household
We must rejoice in God more than our spouse
our spouse otherwise will be an idol and we are not to have idols.
Our spouses can’t save us, they can’t take sin
We as a married couple must have passionate and frequent Sex – 1Corinthians7
We shall not deprive one another
The bible is pro-sex in marriage – we should not hold out or use sex as a weapon or tool
We should have grace filled speech with and about each other Eph4:31-32
because it has been done for you
Gossip and Slander about your spouse is still Gossip and Slander
You need to ask your spouse if you are enjoyable.
Take Joy in Creation with your spouse
grand canyon
arts and theater
find things to enjoy together that point towards God.
Then we ran out, had lunch, everyone but me got their bathing suits on and we headed to the pool where I sat in the sun and watched everyone else have a good time. Not ready for pool time yet.