{"id":3006,"date":"2016-11-22T02:35:59","date_gmt":"2016-11-22T08:35:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tampaseo.expert\/focus\/?p=3006"},"modified":"2016-11-22T02:35:59","modified_gmt":"2016-11-22T08:35:59","slug":"our-families-are-broken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tampaseo.expert\/focus\/2016\/11\/22\/our-families-are-broken\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Families Are Broken"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[Instead of wasting this week with your children while they are out of school, please spend some time talking with them\u2026and dealing with their spiritual struggles.]<br \/>\nOur church families are broken. And as I travel across the nation, what I see rather than efforts to heal and repair, are efforts to conceal and minimize. My interactions with Christian families and elders often peels back layers to reveal:<br \/>\nWe have children using drugs and alcohol.<br \/>\nWe have young people that have already mentally left the church.<br \/>\nWe have youth who are growing up with a dulled conscience.<br \/>\nWe have sons and daughters who are embracing a secular worldview.<br \/>\nWe have children who are committing idolatry through their materialism.<br \/>\nWe have young people committing fornication.<br \/>\nWe have youth bullying or using profane language.<br \/>\nWe have sons and daughters being arrested.<br \/>\nWe have grandchildren addicted to pornography.<br \/>\nWe have children who are worldly.<br \/>\nWe have young people who have no problem lying to their parents.<br \/>\nWe have sons and daughters experimenting with homosexuality.<br \/>\nWe have children who do not sing during worship and look bored.<br \/>\nWe have young people who are on their phones during Bible class and worship.<br \/>\nI could go on, but I think you get the picture. Sadly, these issues do not even include what is going on between the parents. Divorce, materialism, lying, and adultery are rampant\u2014yes, even in the church. I\u2019ll say it again: our families are broken.<br \/>\nYes, these things are going on. But the question that I\u2019m struggling with is: \u201cWhat are we actually doing about it?\u201d The honest answer is not much. Sure we have activities, VBS, retreats, and even some service projects. But the reality is we aren\u2019t addressing the core of the problem\u2014we are not rearing up children with a heart for the Lord. And add to this we have totally forgotten God\u2019s command for church discipline.<br \/>\nMy observation is that we are trying to \u201clove\u201d our children into the right behavior. As a result we have children that rule the house and have no fear of their parents. (And by default have little to no fear of the Lord.) Yes, we are to love our children\u2014but a part of that love should be to love their souls enough to discipline them.<br \/>\n\u201cDo not withhold correction from a child, for if you beat him with a rod, he will not die. You shall beat him with a rod, and deliver his soul from hell\u201d (Proverbs 23:13-14).<br \/>\nFriends, wake up\u2014there are souls at stake here! The souls of our children, grandchildren, and members in our church families.<br \/>\nIt\u2019s time we stop tip-toeing around and start dealing with some of these issues. It\u2019s time the church get into repair business instead of the \u201cprogram\u201d business. It\u2019s time we start addressing the heart. How ironic is it to see young people in a worship assembly wearing youth retreat t-shirts and yet they look bored and refuse to sing. Maybe it\u2019s time we stop worrying so much about the design of the t-shirt and instead focus on what\u2019s under the shirt\u2014their heart!<br \/>\nIt\u2019s time we have family forums and Bible classes to help train parents how to raise children using Scripture. It\u2019s time we humble ourselves and admit our families are not perfect. It\u2019s time we roll up our sleeves and invest the time necessary to repair homes. It\u2019s time we teach our children to blush again and weep over sin. It\u2019s time we hold fathers responsible to be spiritual leaders. It\u2019s time we acknowledge it is the parent\u2019s responsibility to train up his or her own children in the Lord. The church should not be a welfare state where parents drop off their children to activities, and expect someone else to make their children faithful.<br \/>\nAnd finally, it\u2019s time elders start addressing these issues among their flock. Yes, the preacher can address some of these issues from the pulpit, but it is not his job to fix it. It\u2019s past time we employ church discipline\u2014even to our young people. (If they are old enough to be \u201caccountable,\u201d make the decision to follow Christ, and be baptized, then they are old enough to be disciplined when their behavior brings reproach on the church.) If a parent gets upset because members or elders talk to their baptized children then maybe the parents should ask themselves soberly: Are they more concerned about their reputation than they are the child\u2019s soul?<br \/>\nIf someone in your congregation was in the intensive care unit (ICU) how would you respond? Every congregation I visit has families that, spiritually speaking, are in ICU. Yet, we continue to conceal and minimize. It\u2019s time we treat and heal.<br \/>\n<strong>By Brad Harrub, Ph.D.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Instead of wasting this week with your children while they are out of school, please spend some time talking with them\u2026and dealing with their spiritual struggles.] Our church families are broken. And as I travel across the nation, what I see rather than efforts to heal and repair, are efforts to conceal and minimize. My [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1388,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20,52],"tags":[145,49,120,29],"class_list":["post-3006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all","category-family","tag-brad","tag-church","tag-family","tag-sin","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Our Families Are Broken - Focus Press<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tampaseo.expert\/focus\/2016\/11\/22\/our-families-are-broken\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Our Families Are Broken - Focus Press\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[Instead of wasting this week with your children while they are out of school, please spend some time talking with them\u2026and dealing with their spiritual struggles.] Our church families are broken. 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