You show me a wife who is not in submission to her husband, and I’ll show you a household in disarray. Can you imagine an army where sergeants openly disrespect generals, yet expect privates to respect them.
– Voddie Baucham
Voddie Baucham
When the world gets it but the “church” doesn’t.
I just saw this news piece in which a softball coach required eight of her players to drink soda out of a shoe. The matter is being called a mistake and the coach has apologized. Yet, when “Christian” youth groups in American churches participate in drinking foot bath water and licking peanut butter out of armpits and off toes, for some reason they view this as ministry.
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God has designed your family—not the youth group, not the children’s ministry, not the Christian school, but your family—as the principle discipling agent in your children’s lives.
– Voddie Baucham
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So many of our children have little idea what they believe or why they believe it. Couple this with the fact that they are fallen human beings whose natural bent is to sin, and it is not difficult to see their dilemma. Failing to catechize our children is tantamount to surrendering to the culture. . . . Failing to catechize our children only makes it that much easier for the Secular Humanism with which they are constantly bombarded in school, on television, and through friends, neighbors, and coaches to take root and become the guiding principle by which they live.
– Voddie Baucham
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If our homes are to reflect our position as the people of God in the midst of the opposition of a pagan culture, we, like the Israelites, must learn to love. Our homes must be rife with the aroma of love. Those who visit us should notice immediately that they have left the world of self-serving, egocentric narcissism and have entered a safe harbor where people value and esteem others above themselves. Outsiders should enter our homes and never want to leave. Our neighbors should find excuses to visit us just to get another whiff of the fragrant aroma of love. The brokenhearted should long to be near us. The downtrodden and the abused should seek us out. Families on the brink of disaster should point to us and say, “Why can’t out homes be like that?”
– Voddie Baucham
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For too long we have been committed to forms of evangelism that ignore the crucial discipleship element explicit in the Great Commission. We have been called to make disciples, not converts.
– Voddie Baucham
Youth ministry: A “50-year failed experiment.”
Like placing a trampoline next to a spiked fence, sometimes you just have to admit when a bad idea is a bad idea (especially when it’s very harmful to children).
The Christian Post recently reported on a message from Scott T. Brown of the National Center for Family-Integrated Churches (NCFIC.org) in which he bravely went where few church leaders will go and criticized the sacred golden calf of youth ministry calling it “indisputably unbiblical.”
Brown gave this speech at the Sufficiency of Scripture Conference in Kentucky earlier this month which also featured Paul Washer, Voddie Baucham, Ken Ham, Doug Phillips, and others. Brown was optimistic though, hoping that “we are now at the end of this 50-year failed experiment.”
Ingrid Schlueter also weighed in on Brown’s lecture in this post when she said the following:
Youth groups that follow the fun and foolishness model of ministry have been an outstanding success—if by success you mean creating at least two generations of biblically illiterate, immature, and conscience-free consumers of American pop culture. As for training up disciplined, mature soldiers of Jesus Christ who possess a comprehensive knowledge of the Scriptures, most evangelical youth groups get an F.
Laodicean parents are concerned that their children will turn out badly. Turning out badly to Christians now means things like doing drugs, getting drunk or holding up the local QuickTrip. In terms of encouraging teens to avoid sex, drugs, booze and armed robbery, youth groups at evangelical churches probably get a few points. But when did avoiding procreation and police contact become the measure of success among Christian youth? Shouldn’t we be aiming a little higher than that? A working knowledge of sound Christian doctrine, knowledge of the Scriptures and the history of Christianity are now considered the arcane specialties of theologians, not tweens and teens.
The real issue is that evangelical parents are too busy servicing their debt providing iPhones and iPods and laptops for their offspring to worry about the biblical training of their children. Fathers are too involved watching the NFL on their large television screens to lead family worship. Mothers are too busy working out to achieve age-defying abs to teach children Scriptures when they rise up and when they lie down. That’s what youth group is for, they think. Except youth groups aren’t doing these things either. Youth pastors, even those well into middle-age, are bent on proving their coolness to the students in their care. They got krunk, see? They like dance-offs and air guitar competitions and having food items lobbed at their heads for entertainment purposes. Biblical training? Catechesis? Ha Ha Ha. Right.
Scott Brown is right. The neglect of biblical training of young people by their own fathers, in their own homes, is seen everywhere. Most frighteningly, we are seeing the increasing acceptance of things God clearly condemns in His Word. Kids today don’t know the Word. That’s why homosexuality is now seen as just another lifestyle option in a growing number of evangelical churches and colleges. Young people don’t know the Word because their fathers have failed them. Next, their “youth leaders” have failed them by perpetuating foolishness and buffoonery in the name of ministry.
Fathers, mothers, take back your roles as the primary disciplers of your children. Stop delegating the job to fools who are leading your children off a cliff spiritually. The times are dark and getting darker all the time, but the evangelicals party on, seemingly oblivious. The enemy is walking boldly into the church and subverting entire congregations with error of every description, not the least of which is an endemic spirit of frivolity and fun at the expense of teaching Biblical truth. But if evangelicals would look up from their revels, they would see the finger of God writing clearly on the walls of their churches.
“You have been tried in the balances and found wanting.”
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See related:
– Peanut butter salvation and other stupid church tricks
– Whos’ pastoring the youth pastors?
– The problem with youth ministry today.
– A story of injured clowns and evil chickens.
– Another church sanctuary turned into a stage for a worldly dance exhibition.
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It is not the job of the youth pastor to evangelize my child—that’s my job. It is not the youth pastor’s job to equip (disciple) my child—it’s mine. And it is not the youth pastor’s job to send my child out to engage the world; you guessed it—that’s my job too.
– Voddie Baucham
10 questions for Voddie Baucham.
The following Q & A with Voddie Baucham is from Unashamed Workman.
1. Where do you place the importance of preaching in the grand scheme of church life?I believe preaching is central to the grand scheme of church life (see Acts 2:42ff). Preaching/teaching sets the tone and the parameters for all other functions of the church. Our understanding of fellowship, evangelism, discipline, worship, etc., all arise out of our understanding of God’s word. Without sound preaching and teaching, all else will falter. Hence, preaching is of seminal importance in the grand scheme of church life.
2. In a paragraph, how did you discover your gifts in preaching?As a young college student, I went on a preaching mission with several teammates of mine. I was a relatively new believer and had no experience sharing God’s word. Two of my mentors guided me through the week and helped me discover my gifts in preaching for the first time. I felt as though something in me was awakened for the first time. I’ve been preaching ever since.
3. How long (on average) does it take you to prepare a sermon?
When we start a series (preaching through a book or section), it can 15-20 hours or more. However, once we are in the midst of the text much of the background work builds upon previous studies and cuts the time dramatically. Nevertheless, crafting the message, adding illustrative material and mining the text for that last nuance, is a process that never really ends until the preaching moment. That’s the only time I can truly say I am finished preparing the sermon.4. Is it important to you that a sermon contain one major theme or idea? If so, how do you crystallise it?
Absolutely! I am always looking for the central theme in a passage. There may be more than one, but I have come to realize that I am most effective when I limit myself to the main idea. I find that idea by analyzing the paragraph, then the broader context of the section, then the book as a whole, then its place in the broader revelation. Then I go through the process in reverse back down to the passage in question.
5. What is the most important aspect of a preacher’s style and what should he avoid?
The most important aspect of a preacher’s style is authenticity. When I started preaching, I thought my ‘style’ had to fit a certain category. As a result I mimicked some of my favorite preachers. I was constantly reinventing myself. Ultimately, I had to find my own ‘style’ and stick with it. That meant there was one less thing I had to manufacture. I had to realize that God gave me a unique personality and he intended to use it in unique ways. God gave us four gospels written by four unique men, from four different perspectives. I had to remind myself that it is as much of a travesty for me to try to be Tony Evans as it would have been for John to try to be Matthew.
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I believe one of the greatest crutches in the church is the nursery. Parents who have neglected to train their children have very little encouragement to do so when there is a place to hide them. The father who should be up in arms by the time he gets home from church because of the embarrassment to which his child subjected him ends up going home with a clear conscience while the nursery worker takes a handful of aspirin.
– Voddie Baucham
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When I would yell at my children, I was teaching them that they didn’t have to do what I said whenever I said it, just when it was important enough (or I was mad enough) to raise my voice. What’s worse, I was undermining my wife’s authority in the home because she wasn’t as big and scary and didn’t have as deep a voice as me. Thus my word (thundered through the house) became the standard for eliciting obedience. We do not want our children to do what we say with conditions attached. We want them to obey, period. Learning not to repeat ourselves, not to yell, not to call the offending child by all three of his or her names, but to speak in clear, level tones and follow through with consequences for every act of disobedience has completely transformed our home.
– Voddie Baucham
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Any mother who walks into the average American church with six or seven children will tell you, the pagan, secular humanist culture at large is not alone in its negative attitude toward children. Moreover, look at the divorce rates among Christians compared to those of non-Christians, and you will see that our attitudes about and commitment to marriage is anything but exemplary.
– Voddie Baucham
Sermon of the week: “Biblical Womanhood” by Voddie Baucham.
Your Wednesday sermon of the week is Biblical Womanhood by Voddie Baucham. This message is also very apropos to men (so don’t you guys think you can skip out on this week’s sermon).
And don’t forget to check out Baucham’s two messages on Biblical Manhood too.
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Our children used to watch more television than we care to admit. Then we moved to England. TV in England was so bad that we got cable so we didn’t have to watch regular television at night. Eventually we just didn’t watch. We occasionally rented videos, but for the most part we became a family of readers. I can’t tell you the difference that made in our children’s lives. Now our children are limited to four hours per week—only on weekends—and to be honest, unless something special is on, they tend not to use all of that.
– Voddie Baucham
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If you want to know whether or not someone truly loves God, watch what he or she does. If a person does not do the things that God says are pleasing and acceptable, and in fact does the things that God abhors and forbids, and yet claims to love God, it will be tough to support that claim. In fact, John argues, “The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected” (1 John 2:4-5a).
– Voddie Baucham
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Women who break the unwritten two-child-per-family rule are often greeted with questions like, “Haven’t you guys figured out what causes that?” Fathers who choose to emphasize their sons’ spiritual growth at the expense of their participation in the all-consuming pursuit of sports sometimes find themselves being alienated by other dads. Children who don’t attend the local public high school are often looked down upon because they don’t know the latest catch phrases or wear the latest designs. The pursuit of family driven faith can be costly.
– Voddie Baucham
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According to researchers, between 70 and 88 percent of Christian teens are leaving the church by their second year in college. That’s right, modern American Christianity has a failure rate somewhere around eight (almost nine) out of ten when it comes to raising children who continue in the faith. Imagine the alarm if nearly 90 percent of our children couldn’t read when they left high school. There wouldn’t be room enough at school board meetings to hold all of the irate parents.
– Voddie Baucham
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If you are in a church that has resisted the temptation to professionalize worship, you are blessed. If not, my heart goes out to you. In any event, family worship will deepen your appreciation for biblical worship and make the corporate experience that much richer. However, I must caution you—family worship also has a tendency to open your eyes to the shallow, mundane, worldly aspects of the modern “worship” scene.
– Voddie Baucham
Sermon of the week: “Biblical Manhood” by Voddie Baucham.
We continue with week three of our four-week series on Biblical manhood. This week’s sermon of the week is aptly entitled Biblical Manhood by Voddie Baucham. I trust that you will be blessed, challenged, convicted, and encouraged by both parts one and two.
Sermon of the week: “Whoever Controls the Schools Controls the World” by Voddie Baucham.
Hold onto your hats. Your sermon of the week is a scathing blow to the concept of government education by Voddie Baucham entitled Whoever Controls the Schools Controls the World.
Baucham clearly lays out the argument against Christian parents subjugating their parental responsibilities to the Godless, Marxist behavioral engineering centers known as public schools.
All Christians who have or are expecting to have children need to hear this message. And those who currently have their kids enrolled in government schools may squirm in their seats during Baucham’s message, but this is a message that you simply must hear.
Christ Alone Wyoming 