'Dad' - How Serious Do You Take It?

"This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to His voice, and hold fast to Him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." (Deut 3:19-20)

Happy Day after Father's Day, Dads!

Below is an article that Greg Richmond emailed me yesterday that affirms how children mimic the spiritual life of their dads. What will you choose?



Study Confirms: Fathers are Key to Their Children's Faith by S. Michael Craven

I am afraid that our culture in general (and as a result, many fathers themselves) has reduced the role of fatherhood to something nonessential or unnecessary. Many men today regard parenting as being primarily the mother's role and somehow no longer associated with masculinity or “real” manhood.

Instead, many have succumbed to modern cultural caricatures—along with radically feminist psychology—and the label of hunter-gatherer, and thus assume this is their primary contribution to the family. As a result too many men, including professing Christian men, express their role as father exclusively in terms of financial provider. The fact is children are not looking for financial provision; they are looking for love, guidance, and a role model for what it means to be a man.

During the colonial period in America men defined themselves by their level of community involvement and fatherhood. Marriage and fatherhood were seen as being among the highest aspirations in a man’s life. This is likely due to the fact that people at that time were less individualistic. Today the highest aspirations of men seem to be career success and personal leisure; and against these they seek to balance marriage and family.

The lack of actively involved fathers has produced societal conditions necessary for the intervention of government. It is a sobering fact when the government is compelled to respond to the failure of such a fundamental institution as family! In 2001 the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services under President Bush launched its Fatherhood Initiative with this statement:

The President is determined to make committed, responsible fatherhood a national priority … [T]he presence of two committed, involved parents contributes directly to better school performance, reduced substance abuse, less crime and delinquency, fewer emotional and other behavioral problems, less risk of abuse or neglect, and lower risk of teen suicide. The research is clear: fathers factor significantly in the lives of their children. There is simply no substitute for the love, involvement, and commitment of a responsible father.

While the research does indeed show that paternal absence (whether it is physical or emotional) is a significant contributing factor in almost every category of societal ill, my concern is the spiritual consequence.

A rather obscure but large and important study conducted by the Swiss government in 1994 and published in 2000 revealed some astonishing facts with regard to the generational transmission of faith and religious values. (The full title of the study can be found in the online http://www.battlefortruth.org/ArticlesDetail.asp?id=388 version of this article.)

In short, the study reveals that “It is the religious practice of the father of the family that, above all, determines the future attendance at or absence from church of the children.”

The study reported:

1. If both father and mother attend regularly, 33 percent of their children will end up as regular churchgoers, and 41 percent will end up attending irregularly. Only a quarter of their children will end up not practicing at all.

2. If the father is irregular and mother regular, only 3 percent of the children will subsequently become regulars themselves, while a further 59 percent will become irregulars. Thirty-eight percent will be lost.

3. If the father is nonpracticing and mother regular, only 2 percent of children will become regular worshippers, and 37 percent will attend irregularly. Over 60 percent of their children will be lost completely to the church!


Let us look at the figures the other way round. What happens if the father is regular but the mother irregular or nonpracticing? Extraordinarily, the percentage of children becoming regular goes up from 33 percent to 38 percent with the irregular mother and to 44 percent with the nonpracticing, as if loyalty to the father’s commitment grows in proportion to the mother’s laxity or indifference to religion.

In short, if a father does not go to church, no matter how faithful his wife’s devotions, only one child in 50 will become a regular worshipper. If a father does go regularly, regardless of the practice of the mother, between two-thirds and three-quarters of their children will become churchgoers (regular and irregular). One reason given for this distinction was that children tend to take their cues about domestic life from Mom while their conceptions of the world outside come from Dad. If Dad takes faith in God seriously then the implication for children is that God should be taken seriously.

This confirms the role of father as an essential spiritual leader, which I would argue is true fatherhood. Fathers are to love their wives as Christ loves the church, modeling the love of the Father in their most important earthly relationship. Fathers are to care for their children as our Father in heaven cares for us and finally, fathers are the ones to teach their children the truth about reality. It is the father who should instruct his children in their understanding of the world and everything in it using God’s revelation as the basis by which they analyze and respond to life’s challenges and opportunities. It is the father who is essential for sending his children forth with a biblical view of reality and a faith in Jesus Christ that is rooted in solid understanding and not merely blind tradition.

It is time for fathers to return to honorable manhood and reconsider their priorities and realign them with God’s commands, decrees, and laws, teaching these things to your children “when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deuteronomy 6:7 NKJV).

Happy Father’s Day!

© 2010 by S. Michael Craven

Source of Wisdom

"Those who trust their own insight are foolish, but anyone who walks in wisdom is safe." Prov 28:26


If you google 'wisdom' (which most people would deem to be wise) the first entry is Wikipedia. The discussion on Wikipedia begins like this:

"Wisdom is a deep understanding of people, things, events or situations, resulting in the ability to choose or act to consistently produce the optimum results with a minimum of time and energy."

But I guess my question from this definition is: Where does wisdom come from? What's the source of this deep understanding. In our world the answer is 'from anywhere.' Truth/wisdom is relative.

On Sunday, in talking about our families I defined 'wisdom' as simply: The practical application of God's Truth in our everyday lives.

If you weren't there on Sunday I encourage you to listen or watch the first message in the Family Health Plan series (Audio here . . . Video here).

It seems to me that if any ole' wisdom would do the trick, then we wouldn't have all the family issues/crisis' that we do? Maybe God's wisdom is the place to start?

Home Health

A Health Care Plan for Your Family . . . And one that will actually work!

This Sunday I'm going to begin talking about family relationships. Any of your family relationships need work?

And how about folks around us? George Barna, a well known world-wide pollster says that 1/3 of those who are unchurched say they are willing to go to church if someone they know will just ask them! 1/3!

All the people you pass today . . . 1/3 just want someone to care enough to ask. I'm gonna challenge you for the month of May. Every one of you. I'm going to challenge you to bring 5 people with you to Oso Creek during the month of May. I'm challenging me, my wife, my kids, and you.

People all around us need a family health care plan that works. And we've got the answers!


“By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures.” Prov 24:3-4

Holiday Power!

Hope everyone has had a great holiday! We were blessed to be able to go visit family in Lubbock and San Angelo. Had a great time and got to wake up to temperatures of 10 and 15 degrees with snow on the ground.

One very cool thing that took place while most of us were hanging with family is that a group of Vietnamese here in Corpus used our building on Christmas night to have a service. They had an awesome time worshipping together and four of their friends gave their lives to Christ!

Awesome! And Creekers you were a part of it, generously providing them a place to gather! Please pray for their group as they have a vision to be gathering on a weekly basis!

Thanks Lord!

Awesome to get Emily back home yesterday afternoon! Another beautiful smile in the house.

And it was awesome for our entire family to sit around the table last night!

Thank you so much Lord for the blessing of family!

Average Weekend

I've been wondering today why I feel like I'm in recovery :)

This past weekend we had . . .

- 3 Soccer games in San Antonio (2-1) [Not bad!]
- 3 Baseball games (1-2) [Can do better -- but Luke did well!]
- 1 ACT college entrance exam
- 1 College Student leaving for Colorado [Have fun Mimi!]
- 1 Minor Accident in the HEB parking lot [no comment :(]
- 1 HS Girls group at our house Sat night
- 1 Sermon [I'm so thankful for our Lineage in Jesus! http://www.osocreek.org/resources/listen-online/]
- 1 Discovery Dessert at our house Sunday night [Was Awesome! Welcome New Creekers!]
- 1 HS Guys group on Sun night


Whew! Thankfully tonight I only have two meetings :)

Family Meeting Reminder!

Don't forget . . . Oso Creek Family Meeting tonight (Mon - 9th) at 7pm at the building!

Click here to see a post with more detail . . .

(This is how Steve is going to entertain us when we get there!)

Family Meeting

At our house we call 'Family Meetings' from time to time to talk about change that's about to start, a new opportunity, or just to share our heart about what is going on.

Next Monday Night (Nov 9th) we're going to have an Oso Creek Family Meeting at 7pm at the building.

The primary 'business item' is extending the term of our Elders from 2 to 3 years. But we also want to talk about some other Creek business and answer any questions or hear anything that's on your heart.

So . . . please try to come and be a part of the family. And we will have child care for the young un's who ain't ready for business yet. But please email Amber (click here) because we must have reservations for the little ones by Sunday at 5pm!

Days Gone By . . .

Recently as I was reminiscing on my kids growing older and older, I came across this pic of one of our first weekends (probably the very first) in Corpus.

July 1999 when Oso Creek was meeting with about 30 folks at Dawson Elementary School . . . Emily was 9, the twins 7 and the Luker man was 4.
Cindy and I were . . . considerably younger than we are now :)

Day 3 in Chicago

Another great day and we all are dreading having to leave Chicago tomorrow but are blessed like crazy being able to be here together!

Luke and I went to the Cubs game and watched them beat the Cincinnati Reds 8-5. An awesome time in incredible seats that some of you gave us. The whole gig - hot dogs, cokes, soft pretzels, sun and a crazy crowd . . . Wow, what a cool afternoon in maybe the funnest baseball atmosphere I've ever been in.

These pics are of Wrigley Field . . . The second showing how close we sat (6th row from the dugout!) and the last one being the street drummers out on Waveland Avenue being part of the post-game party.

The girls spent the afternoon in all the shops on Michigan Ave (Luke & I were glad to be at the game :)

Then tonight we connected with an old friend/Creeker Hugh Beresford - who some of you might remember . . . it was great to see him!

Chicago - Day 2

Pretty incredible - we started off the day being a part of sports history!
We went to the White Sox - Tampa Bay game and the White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle threw a perfect game! That means no one from the other team got on base in any way during the game.

Now to give a little perspective, it was the 18th perfect game in the history of Major League Baseball (since 1880). Which means it happens about once every 7 years (or once ever 17,000 games). Wow, and God allowed us to be there for all the fun. It was intense. (This pic is of the melee at the end of the game.)

Also had the fun subway adventures all day -- this subway pic is Sarah & Luke giving some love (& cash) to a great street musician.

Later in the afternoon we went to the Skydeck observatory on the Sears Tower (actually now called the Willis Tower - tallest building in the US). It's 103 floors up (and the elevator made it up in ONE minute!) and has these glass balconies that hang out over the building. Cool stuff. My Iphone pics don't really do it justice.

This pic of the flags is also at the Willis Tower - just a continual reminder of what a global world we live in. People from all over the world are here - today I talked to folks from Brazil, India and China. . . . Now for some sleep . . . And O' yeah Corpus Christians hate to rub it in but the sleeping weather is low 60's!

Chicago - Day 1

We had a great first day of vacation . . .

This first pic is on the 'L' - the Chicago subway system - from O'Hare to downtown . . . a great way to experience the Chicago culture

The next pic is Luke at NikeTown . . . the girls were at some foofy girls store

Then two pics from tonight - in front of the best deep dish pizza in the world - UNO's . . . .
And then at the really cool McDonalds where we finished off the night with ice cream

Tomorrow it's the White Sox game!

Chicago, Chicago . . .

Yes! Headed off this morning! Hello Sox! Hello Cubbies!

Hooks . . .

Great time at the Hooks game tonight with my Dad and my Son! It was a beautiful night and good game . . .

But three generations of Bradshaws . . . now that's scary!

A Season Ends . . .

A long Monday as we had another drive to San Antonio . . . and our King HS girls soccer team lost to SA Clark 2-0 in the playoffs to end our season.

But they had a great season - 2nd in District (10-3-1) --- and Laura and Sarah both played awesome games last night --- and I am so thankful we were able to be there!

The sad thing for me is that these fun times will be over before we know it . . . Parents, enjoy all the games and concerts and moments away together and recitals and plays, etc, etc . . . they go by so quickly . . . Be there!

Family

One of several of our gifted photographers at Oso Creek - Jade Payne - asked our family a few weeks ago if she could snap some pics of us for her portfolio.

And snap she did, awesome! I'm even good lookin' in some of these so you know it's some kind of trick photography :)

Not really . . . just awesome. Thanks Jade!

You can check out her work at aphotographiclife.com - and if you've never been there you can also see some of her art on the walls at Coffee Waves!

2-1

We've had two basketball games (Luke 1-1), a soccer game (girls beat San Antonio Highlands) - and a baseball practice in the last 24 hours.

I love coaching (baseball) and watching my kids use the gifts God has given them . . . Cindy and I aren't sure what we'll do when their sports are over one day :) . . .

Also had a couple of great spiritual conversations today with folks at the ballgames/practice . . .

Let's Play 4!

The twins have the CCISD soccer tournament going on today and Luke has a baseball tournament at TM - in all 4 games today!

My normal day off is Thursday, but I spent the day working on my sermon so that I can spend most of today freezing my tail off watching (soccer) and coaching (baseball) games!!

But I wouldn't want to be anywhere else!

To The Hub

That's Lubbock's nickname . . . . We're off to West Texas today to be with Cindy's family . . . and to see some old friends . . . It's awesome to have Emily with us and be traveling again with all 6 of us! The things we so easily take for granted . . .

Have a blessed Christmas!

Emily

Our beautiful Emily. I love her. I miss her.
And I am so thankful to God that she loves Him and follows Him with all her heart.


My heart is steadfast, O God;
I will sing and make music with all my soul.
Awake, harp and lyre!
I will awaken the dawn.
I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations;
I will sing of you among the peoples.
For great is your love, higher than the heavens;
your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens,
and let your glory be over all the earth.
(Psalm 108:1-5)