Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ethan (00:00):
Raising joyful children in an angry world, a podcast
dedicated to faithful parentsnavigating their families
through a stormy culture.
This is Raising Joyful Childrenin an Angry World.
I'm your host, Paul Osborne.
I'm going to bring this portionof the podcast kind of a close
this week.
I want to wrap up by asking aquestion, really.
(00:21):
Why take your family to church?
And then what should you lookfor in a church?
I'm going to take a little bitof a break and then come back
with some different approachesand some different types of
discussion As I think we havekind of wrapped up the outline
of this book The idea of findinga good church is much harder
(00:42):
than you might expect What achurch professes at let's say
the PhD hierarchy leadership ofthe church You And what the
local leadership might believecan be vastly different.
And then there's going to bevariations among the members,
the baselines we discussed inthe apostles creed or the Nicene
(01:03):
creed, maybe a starting line,but a church can include those
things in their liturgy and notbelieve it.
And a church can believe it andnot recite it.
We've talked about from themedieval era, the reformational
era, the enlightenment, theamerican awakenings.
There's all sorts of styles andunderstandings of faith and
(01:26):
there's lots of nuances betweenthe greek the latin and the
english language the wholeseeker movement that came about
in the late 80s and 90s And it,and it helps explain why there
are so many differences.
And what I would say inconclusion as you search for a
church, is there's no such thingas a perfect church.
(01:49):
Even the old slogan that achurch ought to rightly divide
the word of God and properlyadminister the sacraments, It
helps, but you got to knowsomething about biblical
interpretation and systematictheology.
And so to truly get a grip onfinding a church in an era where
so many have left basicorthodoxy, I think one way is to
(02:15):
see how does the church lovepeople and particularly And
unfortunately, it sometimestakes tragedies and crisis and
suffering within a body toactually reveal the heart of the
church.
Recently, in the community ofsaints that I belong to, we had
(02:36):
a weekend with two verydifficult funerals.
It had been a difficult year,even in some respects with
medical discoveries and someother tough things that made it
difficult on our pastor and theleaders and the elders of the
church.
But this one particular week,two families suffered what every
family hopes they never have to,you know, loss.
(02:59):
And when that news hit,regarding the passing of these
two younger members.
Email went out almostimmediately by Monday or Tuesday
requesting volunteers to providemeals and by Wednesday or
Thursday, the slots were fillingup rather rapidly.
(03:21):
And then there was a, there wasa visitation and a celebration
of life, a time for grieving anda service over the weekend.
And the weekend ended as thisone poor broken family had to
come to church just needing morecomfort.
I watched the pastor speak thesewords that were like, they truly
(03:42):
were God put in his mouth ofempathy, of compassion.
I watched the community ofbelievers, shed their tears in
the way David talks about Codputting our teardrops in
bottles.
It was some way to try and bearpart of the burden and the grief
of that family, who was in suchdeep pain and sorrow.
(04:07):
I saw the elders come and servethe sacraments of bread and wine
and wine.
In a way that was so gentle andreflective of the love of
Christ.
there's no place that I know ofon earth where people do their
best when we're going throughour worst.
(04:27):
To wrap the love and thecompassion of God around people
in their most difficult hours.
These situations, force us toput away all of our political
systems, our social and moralityissues, and we recognize the
limits of our wits.
When we're walking throughsuffering and death of our loved
(04:50):
ones, we see that the wisdom ofthe world comes up empty.
And so if you ever wonder aboutwhy to belong to a church, that
was like such an answer.
Where will your children turn?
Who will they call?
What will bring them through acrisis?
(05:13):
These are the most importantquestions that a family must
answer in the lives of theirkids.
But because these questions arehard and unthinkable and we
don't like to talk about them,it's easy to leave them
unanswered.
A church, like in thissituation, delivers urgent care
(05:35):
for those that are in despair.
But if we've not made it part ofthe formation of our family,
it'll be hard for anyone to knowwhere to turn.
The Apostle Paul told us thatChrist gave us three gifts,
faith, hope, and love.
And yes, he said, the greatestof these is love.
(05:58):
But you'll need all three tonavigate these desert times in
the life of a family.
This is why being part of acommunity of believers is so
important.
You need faith to believe thatGod is going to restore and
resurrect in his time and renewall things.
(06:21):
you, you gotta have hope.
Hope sometimes is, you know, inbusiness.
Hope's not a strategy.
No, it's not in business, butyour family is not a business.
Hope is essential in order toget through it.
And love is best expressed andfelt when you need it most in
your distress.
(06:42):
Bringing your children to Godwho gives them these three gifts
will be the most valuedinheritance that you can leave
them.
Because all of us must navigatesuffering.
The scriptures often talk aboutit as desert times in our life.
And all of us are going to facedeath itself.
(07:04):
Deserts are hot in the day.
They're cold at night.
There are places where thenormal things of life are no
longer around you.
Our suffering moments becomespiritual deserts because the
normal things of life go awayand we have to understand how
will we get through it?
A stiff upper lip, as the Britscall it.
(07:27):
Or this new popular term inAmerica called grit.
Or just dig deep inside and pushon.
I've been reading the history ofMarco Polo recently, and there's
a section in his notes crossingthe Gobi Desert to reach the
Silk Road that would lead him toMongolia and the Mongol Empire.
(07:49):
And he describes the desertcrossing and he speaks about it.
About the great illusions andwhat he says, the spirits that
take place.
Some call it the sound of thesands.
Others call it spirits thatcreate sounds of people marching
in the distance or voices orrunning water.
(08:13):
And Marco Polo describes thetemptation that these sounds
play on the mind and the souland that many people who were
making this same journey wouldrun off to see what is that
sound.
And then they cannot find theirway back.
These sounds are so powerful andseem so real that he and his
(08:34):
traveling party tied bellsaround the necks of the horses
and mules and camels to drownout the sound of the spirits or
the sands and give the membersof the team a true sound to
follow.
The instructions were simple.
(08:54):
Follow the sounds of the bell,lest you wander off and die.
The writer of this particularbook says, Other historical
figures that have journeyedacross the desert describe it in
very similar terms.
It's learning to hear what ringstrue.
(09:15):
It's learning to let it drownout what is false.
The current generation ofchildren in our country and in
the West is growing up in aworld of lies.
Of the artificial like nonebefore it, artificial
intelligence, virtual reality,propaganda pollution continue to
increase while the number ofthose professing faith in Christ
(09:39):
dwindle, at least in the West,if the surveys by various groups
including Barna are true.
I say all this as I'm trying towrap this up, that's saying
finding a church is not easy.
In fact, you may have to searchfor a church more than once in
raising your family.
Hope that's not the case, but itcan be the complexities of
(10:04):
people, leaders, and style.
It's really hard to know, but Iwanna leave you with this.
I think the 23rd Psalm is aguide that most of us can grasp.
Does the church.
That I'm attending orconsidering raising my family
in, does it reflect, notperfectly, but does it reflect
(10:29):
what is spoken in the 23rdPsalm?
The Lord is my shepherd.
Jesus explains in John 10, thegreat shepherd, that he's the
only way.
He's the gate.
He's the voice that his sheephear.
That they know his voice andanyone coming in another way is
(10:52):
a liar.
He says he has the power to laydown his life and the authority
to pick it up and that he laysdown his life for the sheep.
Jesus has to be the GreatShepherd, the centerpiece, the
voice of the church that you arein according to who he says he
(11:13):
is.
Amen.
I shall not want.
Are you getting an understandingof Jesus so that you don't want
some other shepherd?
He makes me lie down in greenpastures.
Do I have a sense of peace in mychurch?
Maybe not every time you go, butare there times where I have
(11:35):
that sense of lying down in agreen pasture?
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul Is themission of the church
restorative and not condemning?
He leads me in paths ofrighteousness for his namesake.
Is your family being directed tothe righteousness to truth, to
(11:59):
the wisdom of God?
Ye though I walk through thevalley of death, I will fear no
evil.
Are you hearing messages ofpeace?
Are you being taught not tofear?
Are you being taught not to feardeath itself?
For thou art with me.
Are you taught in word andsacraments that God is with you,
(12:23):
as one who tabernacles with you,who has fellowship with you?
The God is not some abstractconcept, but engages us in real
ways the way he did with Abrahamand Moses and the disciples.
Thy rod and thy staff, theycomfort me.
Are you being given goodcounsel?
(12:45):
Again, not perfect counsel.
Thou preparest a table before mein the presence of my enemies.
Are you taught that God is a Godof abundance, a giver of gifts,
the way God says he gives giftsabout what Jesus says is
valuable?
Not the prosperity gospel, notthat he's going to make you a
(13:07):
billionaire or multimillionaire.
But are you being taught thatGod is a God who is a giver and
abundant?
Thou anointest me.
With oil my cup overflows.
Is God personal to you?
Do you, do you sense a personalconnection to God that your
(13:28):
church is encouraging and thatyou sense this when you're
there?
Surely goodness and mercy shallfollow me all the days of my
life.
Is grace eternal and generous?
And will it follow you all yourdays?
Is this something that'severlasting?
I will dwell in the house of theLord forever.
(13:51):
Are you grasping in yourfellowship that God is eternal
and his promises to you and yourfamily are unbreakable?
Having a church for your familyis critical.
It won't be without flaws andproblems.
(14:14):
It won't come withoutmisunderstandings.
It won't come without having toforgive people and people
forgive you.
There will be spiritual attacksfrom the enemy that you'll think
are flesh, but they're not.
They're principalities andspiritual issues.
It Finding and belonging will bethe most significant treasure
(14:39):
you can give your children sothat they might be joyful.
And the 23rd Psalm is a greatway to try and see, yeah, this
church, they're not perfect.
I'm not, but they reflectsomething of this Psalm and of
the Great Shepherd, that I wantto be a part of it.
(15:03):
The ultimate battle for theheart and soul is a fight for
identity.
Our king invites our kids toknow who they are, what to
believe, and where they belong.
Until next time, let's rememberthe words for theirs is the
Kingdom of Heaven.
Raising joyful children in an angry world, a podcast
dedicated to faithful parentsnavigating their families
through a stormy culture.
This is Raising Joyful Childrenin an Angry World.
I'm your host, Paul Osborne.
I'm going to bring this portionof the podcast kind of a close
this week.
I want to wrap up by asking aquestion, really.
(00:21):
Why take your family to church?
And then what should you lookfor in a church?
I'm going to take a little bitof a break and then come back
with some different approachesand some different types of
discussion As I think we havekind of wrapped up the outline
of this book The idea of findinga good church is much harder
(00:42):
than you might expect What achurch professes at let's say
the PhD hierarchy leadership ofthe church You And what the
local leadership might believecan be vastly different.
And then there's going to bevariations among the members,
the baselines we discussed inthe apostles creed or the Nicene
(01:03):
creed, maybe a starting line,but a church can include those
things in their liturgy and notbelieve it.
And a church can believe it andnot recite it.
We've talked about from themedieval era, the reformational
era, the enlightenment, theamerican awakenings.
There's all sorts of styles andunderstandings of faith and
(01:26):
there's lots of nuances betweenthe greek the latin and the
english language the wholeseeker movement that came about
in the late 80s and 90s And it,and it helps explain why there
are so many differences.
And what I would say inconclusion as you search for a
church, is there's no such thingas a perfect church.
(01:49):
Even the old slogan that achurch ought to rightly divide
the word of God and properlyadminister the sacraments, It
helps, but you got to knowsomething about biblical
interpretation and systematictheology.
And so to truly get a grip onfinding a church in an era where
so many have left basicorthodoxy, I think one way is to
(02:15):
see how does the church lovepeople and particularly And
unfortunately, it sometimestakes tragedies and crisis and
suffering within a body toactually reveal the heart of the
church.
Recently, in the community ofsaints that I belong to, we had
(02:36):
a weekend with two verydifficult funerals.
It had been a difficult year,even in some respects with
medical discoveries and someother tough things that made it
difficult on our pastor and theleaders and the elders of the
church.
But this one particular week,two families suffered what every
family hopes they never have to,you know, loss.
(02:59):
And when that news hit,regarding the passing of these
two younger members.
Email went out almostimmediately by Monday or Tuesday
requesting volunteers to providemeals and by Wednesday or
Thursday, the slots were fillingup rather rapidly.
(03:21):
And then there was a, there wasa visitation and a celebration
of life, a time for grieving anda service over the weekend.
And the weekend ended as thisone poor broken family had to
come to church just needing morecomfort.
I watched the pastor speak thesewords that were like, they truly
(03:42):
were God put in his mouth ofempathy, of compassion.
I watched the community ofbelievers, shed their tears in
the way David talks about Codputting our teardrops in
bottles.
It was some way to try and bearpart of the burden and the grief
of that family, who was in suchdeep pain and sorrow.
(04:07):
I saw the elders come and servethe sacraments of bread and wine
and wine.
In a way that was so gentle andreflective of the love of
Christ.
there's no place that I know ofon earth where people do their
best when we're going throughour worst.
(04:27):
To wrap the love and thecompassion of God around people
in their most difficult hours.
These situations, force us toput away all of our political
systems, our social and moralityissues, and we recognize the
limits of our wits.
When we're walking throughsuffering and death of our loved
(04:50):
ones, we see that the wisdom ofthe world comes up empty.
And so if you ever wonder aboutwhy to belong to a church, that
was like such an answer.
Where will your children turn?
Who will they call?
What will bring them through acrisis?
(05:13):
These are the most importantquestions that a family must
answer in the lives of theirkids.
But because these questions arehard and unthinkable and we
don't like to talk about them,it's easy to leave them
unanswered.
A church, like in thissituation, delivers urgent care
(05:35):
for those that are in despair.
But if we've not made it part ofthe formation of our family,
it'll be hard for anyone to knowwhere to turn.
The Apostle Paul told us thatChrist gave us three gifts,
faith, hope, and love.
And yes, he said, the greatestof these is love.
(05:58):
But you'll need all three tonavigate these desert times in
the life of a family.
This is why being part of acommunity of believers is so
important.
You need faith to believe thatGod is going to restore and
resurrect in his time and renewall things.
(06:21):
you, you gotta have hope.
Hope sometimes is, you know, inbusiness.
Hope's not a strategy.
No, it's not in business, butyour family is not a business.
Hope is essential in order toget through it.
And love is best expressed andfelt when you need it most in
your distress.
(06:42):
Bringing your children to Godwho gives them these three gifts
will be the most valuedinheritance that you can leave
them.
Because all of us must navigatesuffering.
The scriptures often talk aboutit as desert times in our life.
And all of us are going to facedeath itself.
(07:04):
Deserts are hot in the day.
They're cold at night.
There are places where thenormal things of life are no
longer around you.
Our suffering moments becomespiritual deserts because the
normal things of life go awayand we have to understand how
will we get through it?
A stiff upper lip, as the Britscall it.
(07:27):
Or this new popular term inAmerica called grit.
Or just dig deep inside and pushon.
I've been reading the history ofMarco Polo recently, and there's
a section in his notes crossingthe Gobi Desert to reach the
Silk Road that would lead him toMongolia and the Mongol Empire.
(07:49):
And he describes the desertcrossing and he speaks about it.
About the great illusions andwhat he says, the spirits that
take place.
Some call it the sound of thesands.
Others call it spirits thatcreate sounds of people marching
in the distance or voices orrunning water.
(08:13):
And Marco Polo describes thetemptation that these sounds
play on the mind and the souland that many people who were
making this same journey wouldrun off to see what is that
sound.
And then they cannot find theirway back.
These sounds are so powerful andseem so real that he and his
(08:34):
traveling party tied bellsaround the necks of the horses
and mules and camels to drownout the sound of the spirits or
the sands and give the membersof the team a true sound to
follow.
The instructions were simple.
(08:54):
Follow the sounds of the bell,lest you wander off and die.
The writer of this particularbook says, Other historical
figures that have journeyedacross the desert describe it in
very similar terms.
It's learning to hear what ringstrue.
(09:15):
It's learning to let it drownout what is false.
The current generation ofchildren in our country and in
the West is growing up in aworld of lies.
Of the artificial like nonebefore it, artificial
intelligence, virtual reality,propaganda pollution continue to
increase while the number ofthose professing faith in Christ
(09:39):
dwindle, at least in the West,if the surveys by various groups
including Barna are true.
I say all this as I'm trying towrap this up, that's saying
finding a church is not easy.
In fact, you may have to searchfor a church more than once in
raising your family.
Hope that's not the case, but itcan be the complexities of
(10:04):
people, leaders, and style.
It's really hard to know, but Iwanna leave you with this.
I think the 23rd Psalm is aguide that most of us can grasp.
Does the church.
That I'm attending orconsidering raising my family
in, does it reflect, notperfectly, but does it reflect
(10:29):
what is spoken in the 23rdPsalm?
The Lord is my shepherd.
Jesus explains in John 10, thegreat shepherd, that he's the
only way.
He's the gate.
He's the voice that his sheephear.
That they know his voice andanyone coming in another way is
(10:52):
a liar.
He says he has the power to laydown his life and the authority
to pick it up and that he laysdown his life for the sheep.
Jesus has to be the GreatShepherd, the centerpiece, the
voice of the church that you arein according to who he says he
(11:13):
is.
Amen.
I shall not want.
Are you getting an understandingof Jesus so that you don't want
some other shepherd?
He makes me lie down in greenpastures.
Do I have a sense of peace in mychurch?
Maybe not every time you go, butare there times where I have
(11:35):
that sense of lying down in agreen pasture?
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul Is themission of the church
restorative and not condemning?
He leads me in paths ofrighteousness for his namesake.
Is your family being directed tothe righteousness to truth, to
(11:59):
the wisdom of God?
Ye though I walk through thevalley of death, I will fear no
evil.
Are you hearing messages ofpeace?
Are you being taught not tofear?
Are you being taught not to feardeath itself?
For thou art with me.
Are you taught in word andsacraments that God is with you,
(12:23):
as one who tabernacles with you,who has fellowship with you?
The God is not some abstractconcept, but engages us in real
ways the way he did with Abrahamand Moses and the disciples.
Thy rod and thy staff, theycomfort me.
Are you being given goodcounsel?
(12:45):
Again, not perfect counsel.
Thou preparest a table before mein the presence of my enemies.
Are you taught that God is a Godof abundance, a giver of gifts,
the way God says he gives giftsabout what Jesus says is
valuable?
Not the prosperity gospel, notthat he's going to make you a
(13:07):
billionaire or multimillionaire.
But are you being taught thatGod is a God who is a giver and
abundant?
Thou anointest me.
With oil my cup overflows.
Is God personal to you?
Do you, do you sense a personalconnection to God that your
(13:28):
church is encouraging and thatyou sense this when you're
there?
Surely goodness and mercy shallfollow me all the days of my
life.
Is grace eternal and generous?
And will it follow you all yourdays?
Is this something that'severlasting?
I will dwell in the house of theLord forever.
(13:51):
Are you grasping in yourfellowship that God is eternal
and his promises to you and yourfamily are unbreakable?
Having a church for your familyis critical.
It won't be without flaws andproblems.
(14:14):
It won't come withoutmisunderstandings.
It won't come without having toforgive people and people
forgive you.
There will be spiritual attacksfrom the enemy that you'll think
are flesh, but they're not.
They're principalities andspiritual issues.
It Finding and belonging will bethe most significant treasure
(14:39):
you can give your children sothat they might be joyful.
And the 23rd Psalm is a greatway to try and see, yeah, this
church, they're not perfect.
I'm not, but they reflectsomething of this Psalm and of
the Great Shepherd, that I wantto be a part of it.
(15:03):
The ultimate battle for theheart and soul is a fight for
identity.
Our king invites our kids toknow who they are, what to
believe, and where they belong.
Until next time, let's rememberthe words for theirs is the
Kingdom of Heaven.
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