There was a time when my mother was actively involved in the pro-life movement here in the Toronto area. I have many memories of journeying downtown with her, taking the subway and bus with mom, so we could volunteer in some way in the fight against abortion. I have fond memories of it, mostly. At times, though, I am prone to despair as it seems that in the twenty or twenty-five years between then and now, there has been little change, little progress. The United States has not seen an overturn of Roe v. Wade and Canada still has no abortion law at all (which is really little different than enacting a law protecting a woman’s right to abort her child). I am buoyed, though, when I hear stories of individuals who have been impacted by pro-life work, stories of women who have encountered pro-life advocates, who have realized the value of life and who have chosen to save the lives of their unborn children.

I have spent the last thirteen years of my life trying to forget my teenage years. It’s not that these years were really so bad and it’s not like I went through a period of utter rebellion as do so many teens (for which I give thanks to God). It’s more that I had little joy in these years and felt that I was mostly just putting in time as I waited to grow up. What I do remember is many times of disobedience and disregard for my parents. I loved them and hated them. I needed them and yet wanted to go about life on my own. Though I may not have told them so in so many words, many times I just wanted them out of my face. I remember those years well—more so than I would like.

I don’t often post reviews two days in a row, but today you’ll need to bear with me.

I was somewhat surprised but rather pleased to find The Little Boy Down the Road in my mailbox one morning. It was the first I had heard of the book. I was drawn to it by its pastoral cover and its simple premise—“Short Stories and Essays on the Beauty of Family Life.” As the subtitle says, this is a collection of stories and essays that attempt to reveal the beauty of family life. It is, perhaps surprisingly, the first of Douglas Phillips’ books that I’ve read. Let me share a brief overview of its chapters.

I grew up in a stable family and in a church community of stable families. Divorce was almost unknown among the Christians I knew as a child. But as I looked to friends and family outside the bounds of the church I saw many broken homes. My parents let us see these families and I think they wanted us to see them as an object lesson in the reality that God is the one who had bound our family together and the one we would trust to always keep it bound together. It is a sad reality, though, that many families and almost a majority of families are immediately affected by divorce. It is sadder still that Christian families are by no means immune.

Kristine Steakley came from such a broken home. Here is how she begins her new book Child of Divorce, Child of God:

Instructing a Child's Heart has been a long time coming. It was thirteen years ago that its predecessor, Shepherding a Child's Heart, was published. It was thirteen years ago that Tedd Tripp published his last book. It was no lost on me that many of the book's lessons and anecdotes now focus on the author's grandchildren. Thirteen years is a long time by any measure!

I was raised as part of a Christian tradition that did not place a lot of emphasis on the religious component of the Christmas season. Christmas was a time for family and for friends and for being grateful for all the blessings given us by God, but did not include a lot of distinctly Christian traditions. It is with some interest, then, that I read of advent and the traditions of other people around the Christmas season.

I used to be an avid computer gamer. From the time computers became widely available, I was using them to play games. I played them for long enough to know that they don’t make them like they used to. Modern-day games have not risen above the standards set by such classics as X-Com, Railroad Tycoon, Civilization, SimCity and so on. When these games were made, computers were primitive enough that a game had to stand on the merits of its gameplay. Graphics were not exciting enough to be able to hide a bad game within pretty graphics. With recent advancements in technology, games have undergone a radical transformation. Today’s games are rapidly becoming almost photo-realistic. This raises new issues about the morality of portraying acts of violence and sexuality that were mostly unknown even a few short years ago.

There are many things in life that are easy to do poorly but are much more difficult to do with excellence. It did not take me long as a parent to discover that it would not be difficult to raise children, but that it would be exceedingly difficult to do it with excellence. In the six years since my eldest child was born I have looked often for help and advice in becoming an excellent parent. Unfortunately my wife and I have received little mentorship in this area. Thankfully, there are many books written about this topic so we have often looked to these resources to provide the wisdom and training we know we need.

Matthew Henry once wrote regarding family worship, “Here the Reformation must begin.” If we are to experience the fullness of God’s blessings and are to be as faithful to Him as we can be, we must begin with the family, the very building block of God’s kingdom. This is something that was understood by the first and second generation Dutch-Canadian Christians among whom I grew up. Every meal was begun with prayer and every meal ended in a time of family worship. I do not recall any exceptions. This was the expectation of all families, and I am quite sure that nothing short of natural disaster would interfere with this family worship. It impacted myself and my family deeply.

Outside of those Dutch circles it seems that family worship is far less common. I find it strange that at a time when there is such a great deal of discussion about the priority and nature of worship, so little attention has been given to family worship. Don Whitney seeks to remedy that in his new booklet entitled Family Worship: In the Bible, in History & in Your Home.

Growing up Christian is not as easy a task as one might think. There are dangers and temptations unique to growing up within a Christian family and within the church and sadly these difficulties are often downplayed or misunderstood by those who have been converted later in life. Growing Up Christian seeks examine these issues, which, as a person who grew up in a Christian home (ie a “church kid”), are near and dear to my heart. The book is targetted primarily at church kids, though their parents would do well to read the book with them. The author, Karl Graustein, is a church kid himself and is now a principal at a Christian school, so is intimately aware of the issues at stake.