Book: Family Driven Faith by Voddie Baucham.
Rarely do I read a book that challenges my thinking to the extent that Family Driven Faith has over the past week or so. Coming from a fellow Southern Baptist, I did not expect anything too drastic from Baucham. In fact, halfway through the book I was mostly in a mode of appreciation for Baucham's well-presented arguments for family worship and discipleship. But then the book picked up steam...
Baucham's arguments move in the latter half of the book (and especially the final two chapters) to the church and how the church is failing to be biblical in its approach to families. He makes a strong case for what he terms a "family-integrated church" which is more about men being the kind of fathers they need to be than about youth and children's programs.
As Baucham admits, though, such an approach by pastors to the church is likely to get them fired in an age that is so enamored with programs, events, and "professional" nursery care. The idea of families worshiping together not only in the home but also in the gathered worship of the local church is so absent from today's Christian thinking that the suggestion is staggering (and, according to Baucham, not often well received.)
Why is such a biblical idea not palatable? I think it is because it requires something of men that is noticeably absent in most men: a real spiritual life - a true walk with Christ.
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2 comments:
Yeah, that's a killer book. I read it a couple of months ago and made my wife read it too (literally "made" her). I'm actually working on a review.
I think part of the difficulty the church today has with swallowing the type of biblical fare that Baucham advocates is that it doesn't come prepackaged like so much of the ready -available spirituality does today. It has to be lived, fought for, and won every day.
You mean it can't be packaged and shipped to our church office from "headquarters" in Nashville?
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