Voddie Baucham - why Your Family Needs the Church Q&A

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
So could you address families who have children with special
needs who have the time they get to church are
spent already, or a child who is, you know, with autism,
tosses the chair across the room and busts something up
because the child said, I want another song and the

(00:25):
teacher said, no, there's still not asking things for myself.
But I'm a foster parent.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Uh huh.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
I mean you get all kinds of special needs coming
in through our home, and a lot of churches don't
provide that. That's not like mindedness, So it's not maybe
a reason to leave.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
But by the time we've.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Battled therapists all week long and specialists all week long
and we try to get to church. By the time
we're there, there is not anything left.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Is it a battle to get to the therapist? It is,
But you do it.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
It's it's.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
Okay. I would say, I would say, treat it with
the same importance that you treat everything else that you
do for that child. It's a battle to get to
the therapist. It's a battle to get to treatments, it's
a battle to get to whatever. It's a battle to
get to those things. And none of those things is
important as getting to church, So I would say, treat
it the same way. Do have you what as a

(01:29):
responsibility of the church to respond how to families with
children to have special needs? Yeah? Yeah, here yeah, yeah.

(01:52):
It is a battle. But here's the thing. As a church,
we don't know what people need unless they tell us.
So it's not our responsibility as elders to make provision
for every contingency. It's our responsibility to shepherd the people
who are in our flock. But we can only do
that to the degree that they let us know what

(02:14):
kind of shepherding they need. And so if it's quite
unfair for a family who has a particular need with
a particular child to come to our church and judge
us because our church that doesn't have that and hasn't
had that, isn't prepared for them. So no, no, no, no,

(02:36):
I'm saying I know you didn't. I know you didn't.
But what I'm saying is that that that's not fair.
So in that sense, I don't believe it's the church's
responsibility to be prepared for every contingency. When somebody does
come though and they say, hey, can you help us
with this? Oh well, now, that's the time when we
can begin to figure out how it is that as

(02:56):
believers who are in covenant community with one another, we
can be helpful to one another, you know. So yeah,
that's what we do. That's what Christians do. Yeah, that's
what Christians do, and we aught we ought to, we
ought to do that. But it's got to be a
two way street because oftentimes, what we've found is that
there are people who who need something. Because we had
people show up at our church with children who have

(03:19):
you know, various kinds of needs and then the next thing,
you know, they're not coming anymore. And their response is, well,
we needed dot dot dot and we didn't get it.
Oh okay, would have been nice if we could have
gotten an email maybe you know, phone call or something
to just say this is what we need. You know, yeah, absolutely, absolutely, yeah, yeah,

(03:48):
if we're able, and that's for anybody, I mean, that's
for anybody. That's like a church having a ramp for
people who have a wheelchair, right, can we do Yeah,
we do that.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Let's do that.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Let's figure out how we can do that. And until
we can figure ot how we can do that, let's
go get some guys out there to pick that thing
up and bring it in here. You know, that's just
that's just that's just body life, you know. But see
the problem is what we do is we're so used
to things being institutionalized that there are people, especially these children,
you know, who are like, well, all churches need to

(04:19):
have dot dot dot and dot dot dot because they
need to recognize this career. We we just we don't,
we don't know, and not every you know, person who
has issues like that has the same needs. And so
rather than rather than trying to do it that way,
we we just need to do body life. And when
you're doing body life, man, those kind of things, those

(04:39):
kind of things, those kind of things get dealt with,
and beyond that, those kind of things become more common.
And so we know that, you know, Okay, there might
be Jimmy might have an outburst.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
That's cool.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
We're Jimmy's one of us, and Jimmy's outbursts are kind of,
you know, part of our deal. There's Jimmy. That's I
means amen right there, you know. So yeah, that's how
we that's how we deal with that. But that's doable.
That's really doable, you know. But it's gotta it's it's
got to be a priority on both internet of that spectrum.

Speaker 4 (05:13):
Yeah, yes, that's welcome. I'm thankful for your talks last
few days. My only objection would be your pronunciation of
the prophet's name Isaiah.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
I did say Jeremiah one time.

Speaker 4 (05:33):
Huh did You made a comment yesterday about having a
vested interest in the state of the nation, And so
I've been thinking recently about politics and things like that,
and as a believer, what my involvement or even my
outlook on that should be. I was wondering if you

(05:54):
had a few practical bits of advice to how your
average layman should approach politics, What time should be given
to to what As far as you know, I believe
we should be voting and things like that.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
But yeah, yeah, just a couple of things, a couple
of really simple things. Oftentimes when we talk about that
and our involvement in that sphere, people immediately jump to either,
you know, being a candidate or being or this or
being or that. No, no, no, no, I bring it
way back. Number one, know who your representatives are at

(06:36):
every level. Ninety nine percent of Christians can't tell you that.
They don't even know who represents them. Okay, they have
no idea. Yeah, a whole lot of Christians don't even
know their senators. Ain't just two of those guys, right
and they're up there, and okay, we don't even know.

(06:58):
We just have we have no idea. Of course, some
of us would like to not be reminded of who
our centators are, but you know, so just know who's
representing you, so that secondly you can pray for those
who represent you, and then thirdly, perhaps you can interact
with those who represent you. You know, one of the
things that we do when when we're praying for a local, state,

(07:21):
and national representative every week, is kind of raising the
awareness of who these people are that represent us. And
another thing that we do is we send them a letter.
So at the end of the service, the first page
is the letter and it's signed by the elders, signed
by our deacons, and then there's a second page just
signatures of church members. And so we send them these
people the letter that we've signed. It says that we

(07:42):
prayed for them. Da da da da. We've gotten so
many letters back in response just saying you don't know
how much this means to me. I appreciate this, and
when you pray for me, could you be praying for
dot dot dot dot dot. There are people who come
and seen us, there are people who've helped us with
things that's minuscule. You know, just know who's representing you, right,

(08:07):
Pray for the people who representing you, and then figure
out if there's a way that you can interact with
them and not just when you're complaining about something. You know,
if we would do that, it would revolutionize, it would
revolutionize our impact and our influence. Thanks for Ny.

Speaker 3 (08:28):
You mentioned moments ago your move. I don't know if
you've already mentioned it in the conference, but could you
just share a little bit about that with us so
that we could be praying for you. And I don't
know how public it is, I don't know, So I
was just curious, Oh, our move?

Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah, yeah, we're moving. My family and I are moving
in August. We're going to Lusaka, Zambia and South Central Africa.
I'm going to take a position there as dean of
a new seminary. So our plan right now is that
will be gone for three to five years. But you know,
my wife is convinced will never be back, and i'd

(09:02):
be cool. So yeah, we leave, we leave in August.

Speaker 5 (09:07):
You had mentioned earlier about your leadership training and especially
for elders, and I'm sure it also includes the deacons. No, Nope,
more just elders. Okay, can you be more specific about
that type of training and maybe some materials and resources
for some of the fathers. As fathers, we need to

(09:29):
be training our children to desire this good thing. And
if we're not elders are are already elders, we need
to be also preparing ourselves to become so and do
the work that God has required.

Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yeah. The book Family Shepherds is an outline, a specific,
detailed outline of what we use uh to equip all
the men in our church. We equip every man to
be the shepherd of his home in the areas of
a family evangel in the discipleship, marriage enrichment, lifestyle evaluation,

(10:06):
and child training. And so that outlines the what and
the why of that discipleship of every man for the
leadership in his home. Our elder training program is specifically
for men with call and qualifications for pastoral ministry, and
that's a two year program that we do. You know,

(10:27):
the first year, the first half of the first year
we teach them Old Testament hermeneutics and biblical theology. Second
half of the first year they do New Testament homilytics
and systematic theology. And then in the second year, each
month is devoted to a specific area of practical theology.

(10:52):
And then that ends in entrance into an internship program.
And we have kind of a medical like a medical
internship program, a three phase internship program for the guys
to work through after that to move towards to move
towards eldership. So it's it's specifically designed for individuals who
are going into eldership preaching ministry.

Speaker 5 (11:14):
Thank you.

Speaker 6 (11:18):
So first of all, as someone who's committed to their
local church but has greatly benefited from your teaching over
the past few years, I'd like to thank you for
giving in to your fellow elders and making your sermons
available because they've they've definitely blessed me and I know
others that I've shared them, they'll be happy.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
They'll be happy to hear that. Every once in a while,
they just send me one of the notes that we receive,
you know, just one of those notes that just says, yeah,
this is a good thing.

Speaker 2 (11:43):
To do so.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah, I'll be sure and remind them they'll be so.

Speaker 6 (11:47):
In light of your your statement about the responsibility of
the elders and the role in shepherding the people under
them and knowing them. With regard to church grow, if
is there a point that you think that a church
reaches a really effective limit in the size of the
church to where that's really not able to be done

(12:09):
in a biblical manner and its best to replicate the
church and to you know, plant smaller churches rather than
grow to you know, say thousands of peoples. And I
know there's some good churches out there that are in
that mega church range, but you see, I think the
majority of those mega churches also have you know, doctrinal
and other issues. And how much of that is I

(12:32):
need a question.

Speaker 1 (12:32):
I need a question. I need ques which do you
think it's.

Speaker 6 (12:35):
Possible for the for the church to function and get
to that point where you can have that thousands of
people type of church or is the more biblical model
to just replicate and say, okay, we get to a point,
we're going to go send a bunch of people out and.

Speaker 1 (12:49):
You're still friend, I need a question. Do I think
it's possible for a church to function biblically with thousands. Yes,
it happened in the Bible, so yes, a church can
function effectively with thousands of people, and a church can
function ineffectively with dozens. So it it can happen. It

(13:12):
can happen. It's hard, it's really hard, but it can happen.
It can happen. Yeah, and I'm I don't I don't
want to be rude, but I really need, like I'm
trying to get to the airport, so I need like
a question, not not all right, fast, okay fast.

Speaker 7 (13:33):
Yeah, okay, So practical homeschool life, we have our homeschool
families within our church, but then we also have our
homeschool family families within the homeschool community. Yes, around us,
they tend to be a bit more lukewarm as far
as their Christian walk, and the women tend to be

(13:56):
as not as modestly dressed. And my wife was actually
curious about how to deal with, uh, the differences between
how we live within our church body and how we
live within our community body that's also part of the
homeschool community, specifically the women.

Speaker 1 (14:18):
Sure, I understand what your question is, How do we live.
I mean, what do you what do you mean?

Speaker 7 (14:23):
So, so the question is is that you have lukewarm Christians.
I got the Christians, however, they're not living a Christian life.
And then my wife has to contend with one group
of people on one side of the fence and then

(14:43):
another group of the people on another side of the fence.
How can she either a witness to them or b
should she even be around them at all?

Speaker 1 (14:55):
Yes, she should be around them. I mean, why wouldn't
she be around them? Yeah, she should be around them.
But like, it sounds like you've answered your question. She's
contending with these people over here, and then she's contending
with these people over there. Sure right, sounds like that's
the answer to the question.

Speaker 7 (15:10):
Well, I don't always have all the answer.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
Answer that's right, that's the answer. No, that's the answer.
Sounds like she's doing it in a healthy way. I
think she's separating those two groups of people. And over
here she contends with these people and deals with them
where they are. And over here she contends to these
people and deals with them where they are. Sure, so
you she's good, man, perfect, She's good. She's good. She's good.

(15:38):
Then and let me say this too. I say that
as an individual who is a competitive martial artist. And
so I not only have you know the people in
the church and people another you know, sort of Christian community,
homeschool type thing, but then I got people just flat
out lost, right, I got people that I train with
who are just flat out lost. And I praise God

(15:59):
for that because as pastors, most of the pastors I
know don't have a single lost friend, not one. They
can't remember the last time they invested in somebody's life
long term and had to witness to somebody long term
who was an open, known, acknowledged unbeliever. So it's been

(16:20):
just a tremendous blessing for me to be able to
do that. And so yeah, we need that in our life.
We need those people who make us uncomfortable. We need
those people who make us stretch. We need those people
who make us have to think about, you know, what
it is that we're doing. The last thing we want
is a world where we're only dealing with people who
were completely like minded. And this is true mainly because

(16:44):
we're not right about everything. And if the only people
I deal with are people who are completely like minded,
I'm never going to grow. I'm never going to stretch.
I'm never going to be challenged in a good or
bad way, and that's not healthy.

Speaker 5 (17:00):
Was just answered.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
All Right, all right, I'm sorry that we had to
be rushed in this. I'm coming son, okay, gentle met
my son in law, Philip. Right, it's Philip. All right,
Hello Philip. We're on our way to the airport. Thank you,
thank you. Good night.