Focus on the Family

A few weeks ago, I was flying to New Orleans - from Nashville - coming back from a consulting engagement in Tennessee.  I brought the latest copy of USA Today on board to help pass the time on the relatively short, but crowded, Southwest flight.  A glance at the Opinion page and I saw a headline that read "Debate over preschool obscures the core problem".  A subtitle read "Fragile families harm children".    Any reader would have had a hard time missing the alarming chart in the middle of the page which showed that in 1960 5.3% of children were born out-of-wedlock....but by 2010 that percentage had grown to 40.8%.  Let that sink in for a moment.  Today, two out of every five children are born to single mothers.  As a man and a father, I just can't imagine turning my back on the fundamental responsibility of holding one's family together.

Apparently, being a father is just not as fashionable these days. 

The article cited a number of research studies that have concluded that children raised in one-parent homes typically face an uphill battle - socially, physically, financially and emotionally.  Now...to be fair....there are plenty of single parent success stories - most of those being single moms.  The article was simply pointing out that raising children with only one parent makes child raising harder than it has to be.   Reading through the article, you can almost feel the arms of the author being cast skyward in desperation....as the article begs the questions...."where did we go wrong?" and "what do we do now?".  The article ends with a bone-jarring claim: "the primary engine of social advancement has always been the family, and it is breaking down."

Of course....a secular article in USA Today is not going to refer to the Biblical model of the family.  But if we truly ask ourselves....if all parents were following the Biblical model of the family....would there even be a need to write the article I found myself reading?  The answer, of course, is "no". 

God's plan for the family was not an afterthought.  We read of God's plan all the way back to Deuteronomy 6:4 - 9.  This is a well-known passage where we experience Moses communicating with the people of Israel.  This passage is also where we first learn of the Greatest Commandment (Jesus himself would later reference this passage during his ministry on earth)....and the fact that instructions regarding the family were mentioned alongside of the most revered of Jewish teachings....reminds us that the family is important. 

Within these five verses in Deuteronomy 6 we learn that God should be part of all daily activities - waking, working, going to bed.  Family activities that have remained unchanged over the course of several thousand years.  Moses also instructed God's people to protect their house with the Word of God.  Many took this literally...and some still do.  Phylacteries are small containers of scripture that some orthodox Jews wear on their forehead and arm.  And some adorn the doorways  in their houses with "mezuzahs" (containers with scriptures) that can be touched when traveling from room-to-room.

Scripture is "crystal clear" that "family comes first" - to borrow a phrase that seems overused at times.  It is in the context of the home - not the Church - where families learn and grow in faith.

In a modern society where the breakdown of the family is so alarming and profound, it would be tempting for us, as Christians, to just shake our heads, wonder where it all went wrong....and resign ourselves to the fact that things just aren't like they were in the "good ol' days.  But that is not how Jesus Christ would respond.  Our congregations should approach the problem of the family with prayer, love and compassion....not condemnation, shame and embarrassment for those who find themselves in the midst of family turmoil.  After all, if Jesus Christ did not come to condemn the world (John 3:17) then how can we justify doing so? 

Audio Sermon of "Focus on the Family"

Notes from "Focus on the Family" Sermon