family

This is now the third article in this series on homeschooling and public schooling. In the first article I offered a small glimpse at the changing Christian landscape when it comes to education and then placed education in the category of secondary doctrines or disputable matters. This brought us to Romans 14 where Paul writes about weaker and stronger Christians. In the second article I looked at how people who disagree on disputable matters ought to relate to one another and how each will be particularly prone to sin against the other.

Today we come to the tricky and unavoidable question: When we consider education, who is weak and who is strong? In certain ways I think this question has been answered along the way. Over the past 2 days I’ve seen quite a few ugly comments both here on the blog and on Facebook. The comments bear all the marks of temptations particular to the weak or the strong. And that is part of the reason that I wanted to wait until today to suggest who are the weak and the strong. A friend wrote me to say that by the end of the article he was already longing to be considered strong and already despising the weak. This gave him a good moment to examine his heart. It has certainly done the same for me.

Who Is Weak? Who Is Strong?

I think my answer is going to be disappointing. To be honest, I am a bit disappointed with it! I have thought about it a great deal and have changed my mind several times. Like most of you, I have wanted to believe that I am strong; I haven’t wanted to admit weakness. And yet someone must be weak and someone must be strong. Where there is disagreement on secondary issues there must be someone who has worked out more of the implications of being justified by grace through faith. So who is it? It is a surprisingly difficult question to answer.

Maybe I can illustrate the tension by thinking back to the early days of homeschooling. Here we had public schooling as the norm in most Christian contexts. But then a few families pioneered what would soon turn into a powerful movement. As I understand strength in its Romans 14 context, these people were strong. They understood that God gave them freedom to go against the mainstream and to educate their children as they felt the Lord was leading them. Today, though, there may be a family in a church in which everyone else homeschools. Yet this one family feels the freedom to enroll their children in the public schools. In this context this family is strong, understanding that they have the freedom to educate their children in the way they have been convicted. In one case the homeschooler is strong and in the other the public schooler is strong. Please note that I have not said in either case that all of the other people in the church are weak.

I grew up in a Christian culture in which very little evangelism took place. How little? The first believer’s baptism I ever witnessed was my wife (she was my girlfriend at the time) and that was when we were eighteen or nineteen. It was the first time our church had ever baptized an adult. And what’s more, it was the first time most of the people who attended that church had ever seen an adult get baptized.

A few years after my wife’s baptism we moved away from the town we had grown up in so we could be closer to my place of business. In the past decade we have been members of two different churches that place much greater emphasis on reaching the lost. We have seen many, many people come to faith, including several who are now close friends. We have seen lives altered dramatically and have seen more baptisms than we can count—baptisms in churches, rivers, pools, and a really big, ugly aluminum tank. We have shared in the joy of seeing people profess their faith by being baptized. It truly is one of the greatest joys of any church.

Over the years I’ve had to reflect on what made the churches I attended as a child and teenager so ineffective at evangelism. While there are several reasons I could provide, and they are of varying importance, there is one that I believe stands at the foundation of the rest: These churches often regarded the unbeliever as the enemy. Of course the church would never have articulated that belief, but it seemed to be deeply rooted.

This attitude manifested itself in many ways. One of the clearest ways was among the children of church members. They would rarely, if ever, be allowed or encouraged to play or even interact with the unsaved children in the neighborhood. I knew an “urban missionary” whose children were confined to their backyard and were forbidden from playing with the other children. The churched children were not allowed to play with other children lest they become corrupted by their worldliness.

My observation was that this approach failed and failed badly. First, the church was not faithful in its calling to take the gospel throughout the world. They preferred to exist in an enclave, safe from outside influences. Second, and ironically, the children developed a fascination with the world. I believe this was, in large part, because access to the outside world had been denied to them and they had never seen the pain and heartbreak that are the inevitable results of forsaking God. The world can look awfully attractive until a person sees the results of giving himself over to it. Third, the parents were prone to ignoring worldliness in their own children. I know that I saw more drugs, more drinking, more disrespect and more awful behavior in the Christian schools I attended than I did in the public schools. This isolation simply did not work. What I saw was that we do not need the world to teach us worldliness. Worldliness arises from within.

It’s one of the inevitabilities of parenting—the kids just keep getting older and older. And every now and again I pause and consider and realize that my time with the kids is running out. My son is now 10-and-a-half years old, and in just a few months he will be exactly half the age I was when I got married. It’s entirely possible that I’m coming up to the 50% mark of the time he will be living in my home, under my direct influence. Panic!

This can be a difficult thing to think about. I look back on the ten years of parenting and see so many missed opportunities, so many times that I was not available to the kids. I look at where they are now in their spiritual development, in my knowledge of who they are, and I wonder if I’ve already blown it, if it’s already too late.

But at my best I know better than this. I know it’s not too late and that the best years are ahead. So when I recover from my momentary panic, I look forward to what lies ahead, and I especially look forward to increasingly regarding my children as friends. That is something I’ve seen from my friends with older children—that as the children grow up, they make the slow transition from kid to friend. And already I’m starting to see how that is happening. I’ll always be dad to the kids, but I will also be able to regard them as friends.

In the past few months I have been trying to be a little bit more intentional about spending time with the children, trying to grab the moments that exist and trying to create memories. Mostly I’m just trying to know them and to be known by them. And I know that one of the best ways I can do this is by spending time individually with each one of them.

The first thing I started doing was being deliberate about “daddy dates,” taking my kids, one each week, out for breakfast on Saturday mornings. Because the kids are in public schools we cannot do this on weekdays. But it’s a lot of fun to wake up early on Saturday and head to Denny’s (which, so far, is their breakfast joint of choice). So each Saturday I wake one of them and quietly head out for breakfast. The kids order something off the kids’ menu and I order the Grand Slam. We just sit and talk. It’s not a lot of time, but it’s a good time. It’s a time with no real agenda except to have the experience alone together. I don’t know how long they’ll continue to be impressed with Denny’s, but for now they think it’s awfully exciting.

I’ve also tried to find at least one more substantial thing I can do with each of the children once or twice in the year (outside of the fun things we do as a family). Last year I took my daughter to The Sound of Music (the musical, not the movie) when it was playing in Toronto, spending the money to make sure we could sit in great seats and see all that was going on. I take my son to a couple of baseball games each year, either just the two of us or with him and one of his friends. We try to time things in such a way that we hang out with a player after the game or find a way to get out onto the field or something else that’s kind of special.

As the children get just a little bit older I will begin to bring them with me to the occasional conference. I have seen lots of speakers do this and I’m looking forward to it as well—the travel and the experience will be very exciting for them, even if they get bored to death sitting in a convention center for 2 or 3 days.

One of the most ordinary things I’ve been doing lately is having one of the children help me with the after-dinner routine every night. Since my wife is generally the one who makes dinner, I’ve always taken it upon myself to clean up after we finish eating. And now that the school year has begun, I usually put together the next day’s bagged lunches at the same time. So what I have been doing is having one of the children join me in this each night. We will do dishes together, make the lunches together, and then do whatever that kid wants to do that night. Sometimes we will go for a walk together, sometimes we’ll read a story, sometimes we’ll play a computer game or turn on the Wii. But in any case, we do the work and then spend some time together doing something fun. This has quickly become a tradition that the kids love. Though they probably wouldn’t complain if we were to scratch the bits that demand work, they are so eager to spend time with me that even doing dishes suddenly seems like fun rather than work. (Similar to this but perhaps geared primarily to slightly older children, Brian Croft tells how he individually shepherds each of his children in this very helpful blog post)

So there we have just a few of the ways that I try to make sure I am being deliberate in spending time individually with each of my children. But I know that I’ve got a lot to learn. I’d love to hear from you about some of the things you do, or perhaps some of the things your parents did long ago, as they sought to love you and be loved by you. How do you ensure you are investing personally in each of your children?

Occasionally I attempt to think back to all of the questions I receive from readers of this site. I try to think of things I have been asked many times but have never written about. One that came to mind recently is rather a simple question: Under what circumstances may I leave my church? Quite often I receive emails from readers who are concerned that their church no longer preaches sound doctrine or perhaps no longer offers skillful teaching. And they want to know if the Bible allows them or even compels them to move on.

We live in an age of consumerism and this leaves us accustomed to prioritizing our needs and, even more so, our desires, above all else. We march out of stores that do not carry the products we want at the prices we demand; we customize our lives, from the clothes we wear to the cell phones we carry. In all things we are sovereign, we are discerning consumers who demand that things be done our way.

But church is an area where consumerism ought to be the furthest thing from our minds. At church we are part of an involuntary community which is pieced together by God. We are placed under spiritual authorities and are to be subject to them. We need to be very careful, then, to examine our hearts and examine our motives before withdrawing membership from a church. Sadly, though, there are certain situations in which this becomes a necessity.

There are good reasons to leave a church and there are bad reasons to leave a church. I dare say that there are far more bad reasons than good reasons. There are times where you must leave and times when you may leave. In this brief article I want to point to a few of those good reasons. Perhaps another time I can focus more on the really bad ones.

You Must Leave

Most of the reasons you must leave relate to leadership. If the leaders of a church show contempt and disregard for the Bible and for sound doctrine, you are called to separate yourself from them. And it may well be that the only way to do this is to leave your church (though in some circumstances you may be able to have the leaders removed).

Here are four situations in which the Bible tells you that you must leave a church.

There is little doubt that masculinity has fallen upon hard times. Differences between men and women, between masculinity and femininity are downplayed in favor of sameness, in favor of androgyny. Suggesting that the biblical vision of masculinity has fallen prey to a foolish culture, Richard Phillips writes that his new book The Masculine Mandate “is written for Christian men who not only don’t want to lose that precious biblical understanding, but who want to live out the calling to true manliness God has given us. We need to be godly men, and the Bible presents a Masculine Mandate for us to follow and fulfill. But do we know what it is? My aim in writing this book is to help men to know and fulfill the Lord’s calling as it is presented so clearly to us in God’s Word.”

A few days ago I was talking to some friends about fatigue. It is a popular topic when you’re in the stage of life that includes young children (though, from what I’ve overheard, it also seems to be a popular topic as you begin to hit old age). I got to thinking about the topic and found something I had written about fatigue a couple of years ago, apparently after a particularly tough night.

*****

I got to bed just a little bit later than usual last night. But when I settled into bed, I felt that kind of comforting fatigue—the kind that is not so overbearing that I’m exhausted, but the kind that means I’m really looking forward to a good night’s rest. You know the kind, I’m sure. It’s the kind of tired that makes stretching out between the sheets a real pleasure.

There was one false start before I got to sleep. I was just drifting off when I heard the bedroom door rattle and Abby walked in. She told us that she couldn’t sleep. Aileen got up and tucked her back in, turning on a light to make sure she wouldn’t be scared. A few minutes later we were all asleep. But then, probably around 1 AM, I heard Abby calling for me. She was scared again and was crying. I have no memory of what happened next, but I guess I must have tucked her back into bed, convinced her that everything was fine, and crawled back into bed. A couple of hours later it was Nick’s turn. He marched into our room and woke me up, telling me that his ear was hurting so badly he couldn’t sleep. All things pain-related are Aileen’s department, so she dosed him with some kind of medication, put some hot cloths on his ear, and we went back to sleep. An hour later Michaela was awake, scared by the sound of the strong winds blowing through the trees outside our window. We awoke to her cries of “Mommy!” She ended up in bed with us—all twenty five hot, pointy, squirming, fuzzy pounds of her. At this point I turned off my alarm and figured I’d just have to let myself sleep in so I wouldn’t be completely comatose all day. And so the night went. I awoke at seven in the morning (which is sleeping late for me) feeling not the nice kind of tired, but the exhausted kind of tired that comes from too little rest; too little sleep. It’s the kind of tired that leaves circles under my eyes and requires an extra kick of caffeine to be able to go about the usual routine. It just wasn’t a very good night.

A few weeks after Nick was born, our first child, Aileen and I were facing the exhaustion that comes with a newborn baby. We were just learning to be parents and still assumed that every cough and every sigh meant he was dying. He was a restless baby and didn’t settle into good sleep patterns for a long time. Aileen and I both spent many nights pacing the floors with him. I remember talking to my mother around this time and the words she said stuck with me: “The next time you feel well-rested, you’ll be in heaven.” They may not have been particularly comforting words, but they were realistic. Mom said that, by the time the kids really settled into good sleep patterns, I’d be too old to sleep well anymore. When we had that first child I guess I threw away any hope of really feeling well-rested.

It’s worth it, of course. I wouldn’t trade my children for any number of good night’s sleeps or any amount of rest (though if you asked me in the middle of the night I might occasionally answer differently). But as I lay in bed last night, in those moments where I was just too tired to get to sleep, I began to wonder about heaven. What will it be like to feel really, really well-rested? What will it be like to be able to feel one hundred percent? Will there be fatigue in heaven? Will there be rest? Heaven will, of course, be rest…but will there be sleep?

As I tend to do when I’ve got questions about heaven, I opened Randy Alcorn’s book Heaven this morning and, sure enough, he had some things to say about this. He says:

Our lives in Heaven will include rest (Hebrews 4:1-11). …

Eden is a picture of rest—work that’s meaningful and enjoyable, abundant food, a beautiful environment, unhindered friendship with God and with other people and animals. Even with Eden’s restful perfection, one day was set aside for special rest and worship, Work will be refreshing on the New Earth, yet regular rest will be built into our lives.

To be honest, I am a little skeptical when it comes to Alcorn’s reasoning here, but he does make an interesting case. But what really stood out to me were his next words:

Part of our inability to appreciate Heaven as a place of rest relate to our failure to enter into a weekly day of rest now. By rarely turning attention from our responsibilities, we fail to anticipate our coming deliverance from the Curse to a full rest.

“Make every effort to enter that rest” (Hebrews 4:11). It’s ironic that it takes such effort to set aside time for rest, but it does. For me, and for many of us, it’s difficult to guard our schedules, but it’s worth it. The day of rest points us to Heaven and to Jesus, who said, “Come to me, all you who are weary … and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

Rest is innately good. God Himself rested after completing His work of creation—a perfect being resting after completing the perfect work of creating a perfect world. God built rest into this world. And God gave us one day to practice rest—to learn how to rest. How good it is to set that day aside and to use it just to rest. But beyond that day, God also gives us little glimpses of the rest that is to come. When we used to own a cottage, one of my favorite things to do was to head out alone over the lake in the canoe. And halfway across the lake I would just sit back with a Coke in one hand, a book in the other, and the sun shining on my face. And I’d just relax and let the water take me where it wanted. It was such a beautiful time of peace and rest. And maybe it was a foretaste of the rest that is to come. Today a similar feeling comes as I kick back on a Sunday afternoon with a cold Coke, a good book and a comfortable couch. It is rest and it is good.

I’ve reconciled myself to the fact that only rarely will I really feel anywhere close to one hundred percent while on this earth. To be an adult, to be a parent, is to be tired. But as life goes on, I begin to look to those moments of rest as more than just a chance to rejuvenate. I see them also as a glimpse of what is to come. I see them as opportunities to learn how to rest—to learn how to enjoy the rest that will come with the new heavens and the new earth. They are a taste, even if only a faint one, of the true rest.

A couple of days ago I sat down with Aileen and a blank piece of paper. On the top of the paper I wrote, “If we were better parents to our children we would…” and then, between the two of us, we began to jot down ideas. We thought of some of the things we would do if we were to be the kind of parents we really want to be—parents who love our children, who value genuine friendships with them and, primarily, who raise them in the fear and admonition of the Lord. And I think we came up with a few ideas that ought to make a real difference.

As we did so, I thought of something I wrote a couple of years ago. It somehow seemed relevant. Here it is…

My children have been behaving a little bit strangely at bedtime in recent days. My son tends to be melancholy in the evenings at the best of times but recently has been getting worried as soon as we tuck him into bed. Two nights ago he was concerned that the Sith were going to attack him (how he even knows who the Sith are is beyond me) and last night he was worried that the Japanese were going to invade Canada (I guess he has been reading about the Second World War). I assured him that the Japanese were not going to invade our country but he replied, “Well, they snuck up on Hawaii without the Americans noticing!” This much is true. His little sister feeds off his worries and almost inevitably ends up creating her own.

It generally happens that, by the time we tuck the children into bed, Aileen and I are ready to be done with them for the day. It may sound harsh, but by the end of a long day, we are more than eager to spend an hour or two by ourselves in the living room before also heading for bed. The last thing we want is a parade of children up and down the stairs and a chorus of cries asking us to come upstairs to mediate one problem or another.

Last night, a good hour after I put my daughter to bed, and as I settled into the couch to spend some time reading, I heard a cry of “Daddy!” I went to the bottom of the stairs and asked what she wanted. “Will you come and cuddle me?” she called out. I thought about it for a moment and eventually told her that she should already be asleep and that I was not going to come up and cuddle her. Thankfully she soon drifted off and slept well.

As I thought about it a little bit more I realized that I did not want to cuddle her, at least in part, because I had to. I was looking at it as a “got to” situation: “I’ve got to cuddle her.” And I rebelled. It didn’t take me long to regret my decision. She is going to be with us for so few years and for many of those she will no doubt have no desire to cuddle me. And is it so bad for a six-year old to want a cuddle (or another cuddle) before bed? The more I thought about it, the more this seemed like a “get to” situation: “I get to cuddle her.”

It’s funny the difference made by that one little letter. Throughout my life I’ve struggled with the got to’s and the get to’s. Church can seem like a “got to” obligation, but it is so much sweeter when I face it as if it is a “get to” privilege. My morning devotions can often feel like a “got to” but I enjoy them so much more when I treat them like a “get to.” Rather than having to face the Bible and prayer in the morning, I see them as an enjoyable privilege. It often makes all the difference in a mind as feeble and sinful as mine.

When Abby stumbled down the stairs this morning, squinting through barely-awake eyes, her hair all askew, I grabbed her up in a big hug and settled onto the couch with her for a few minutes of cuddling. It is something I get to do, at least for a few more years. It was my privilege and my pleasure.

Mom always shovels the driveway. It’s a phenomenon I’ve noticed time and again. We live in a neighborhood that has a lot of single moms. I suppose the statistics dictate that most neighborhoods have more than their fair share of single moms. But ours seems to have an unusual amount. I think it is related to the housing prices here. We live in (quite literally) the most affordable housing in town. It is one of the very few neighborhoods in the area where a single income can support a mortgage. It is one of the few neighborhoods that is nice, that is safe and where the homes are small enough to be affordable. And so we have many young couples, many elderly couples, and many single parents. The single moms may have one child, they may have two or three. In most cases the children are teenagers, in their twenties or even in their early thirties. In almost every case there is at least one boy thirteen or older who is able-bodied. Yet in almost every case, mom is the one who shovels the driveway.

I remember being a rebellious, listless teenager. I remember how little I wanted to do much of anything for anyone else. I remember our elderly next-door neighbor had a heart attack and was unable to do any strenuous labor. We had a good snowfall one day and I was enjoying the day from the refuge of my bedroom in the basement, lying across my bed reading a book and listening to some music. My father came down and told me in no uncertain terms that I was to go upstairs, get my winter gear on and get outside to shovel the neighbor’s driveway. He gave me a figurative (and perhaps literal—my memory is a little hazy) kick in the rear-end and sent me on my way. I went outside and there was my neighbor’s wife, shoveling the drive. I pitched in and soon had it cleared. The lesson has stuck.

Dad had high expectations of me, but reasonable, biblical ones. He wanted me to be proactive in service to others; he wanted me to be looking for opportunities to serve and for opportunities to serve as a man serves; he wanted me to use my (growing) strength to serve other people.

I have a boy of my own now and I can see that some of what was in me is in him. He is a good kid, a kind soul. Yet he is sometimes as reluctant to serve as I was when I was young. I am seeking to teach him that he is to use his strength, his ability to serve others and especially to serve those who are weaker or less able than he is. It will not be long before my son is stronger than my wife. Already when they goof around together I can see that she does not have a whole lot on him. What becomes of a mom when she has children who are bigger than she is, stronger than she is, and yet with so little maturity, so little restraint? What happens when there is no one to mentor the boy, to teach him that his strength must be used to serve others?

This is a lesson a father needs to pass to his son. It’s a lesson that no one has taught to so many of the boys who live around me. A few weeks ago I saw a mother struggling with a load of groceries while her boys pushed past one another and past her to get into the house. I stopped them and told them to get back to the car to help their mother. They looked at me blankly and walked into their house, mumbling an excuse. Mom struggled down the walkway she had shoveled with the groceries she was forced to carry. Dad is long gone. There is no one to give these boys the good, swift kick to the posterior that would get them acting like men.

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.

Though there is a part of me that looks with great anticipation to my own children reaching their teenage years, there is a part of me that is terrified. From what I’ve observed of myself, my siblings, and so many other teens, they are years guaranteed to be filled with both joys and sorrows. Rick Horne knows well such joy and pain. He has fathered six teenagers and has counseled hundreds more. This is a man who has a lot to share about leading teenagers through these years. This is the subject of his new book, Get Outta My Face.

According to the author, this book “aims to summarize common experiences parents have with angry teens and illustrate how biblical principles can bring remarkably clear and useful light to these situations. The aim is to position these truths on the bottom shelf so we can all reach them and put them to use with angry, unmotivated teens—even if we’ve made serious mistakes in our previous efforts. We all want to help these young people recognize their self-destructive ways, learn new and effective methods of dealing with life, and ultimately come into a deep and life-changing relationship with Christ. That’s the goal of this book.”

One of the book’s foremost principles is that presentation matters. A parent’s first words to an angry teen will strongly push the interaction to one of two outcomes—the words being received or the words being rejected. The best and most valuable counsel may be rejected if it is not properly presented. This is not to say that the author teaches manipulation. Instead, he simply shows how a parent can approach a teen with respect even when he or she is not looking for any help.

As Horne instructs parents or youth leaders or anyone who seeks to lead and guide teens, he follows this pattern. The first part is “What You Must Understand to Connect with Your Teen.” Here the author helps ensure the parent has a biblically-informed worldview by presenting Scripture’s assessment of your angry or unmotivated teen. This is, as you might expect, the foundational information that will set the tone for all that follows.

Part two is titled “What You Must Do to Help Your Teen” and this is where we find the “how-to” information. The author introduces the acronym LCLP which stands for Listen Big, Clarify Narrow, Look Wide, Plan Small. The author gives one chapter to each of these four and does much of his teaching through little narratives, true or could-be-true illustrations of these principles in action.

While the first two sections deal with the surface motivations and external behavior, the author dedicates the third part to the heart. He calls this portion “How to Make the Changes Stick.” While dealing with a teen will necessitate beginning with external behavior, a parent would be remiss to neglect using the bridge of communication to get to his child’s heart. The ultimate goal, of course, is to lead a teen to the cross, either for the first time or for a growing, deepening understanding of Christ’s work.

Though I am not the parent of a teenager, I am young enough still to remember being one. At the same time, I am only a few years away from seeing my son turn thirteen. Even now, with him growing and maturing, I learned things from this book that I can apply right away. Having said that, this is the kind of book that will undoubtedly necessitate more than one reading for those who wish to absorb it and implement what it teaches. I read it at a good pace and while jotting notes and still feel that I would learn a lot more by reading it through once again. I am sure that I will do so before I have my own teens to deal with.

This is a book that is realistic about teens as they are going to be, not wistful as to what they might be. This is no idealized view of teenagers. Rather, it is realistic, giving an assessment of teens that rings true while providing solutions that can actually work. It teaches a parent to do more than react to a sinful teen, but teaches him to be proactive in approaching the teen, in reaching out to him, and in shepherding his heart. This is exactly what Shepherd Press does so well. Their books, their authors, take issues related to parenting and look at them under the shadow of the cross. Get Outta My Face is a great complement to their existing catalog and a book that I’m sure God will use mightily for his glory. If you have teens, if you will soon have teens, or if you work with teens, you will want to get yourself a copy of this book.

Buy it at Monergism Books

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.

“The Little Boy Down the Road” shares a son’s joy in the return of his father and goes on to speak of the simple joys of parenthood. “The Woman Who Chose Life” is a remarkable story of God’s providence in the gift of life while “The Art of Home School Opera” is a humorous look at the joys and importance of family eccentricities. I should note that in these early chapters I began to notice the repetition of certain words and phrases and felt like something was being said between the lines, that the author was building toward something, but was doing so using a lexicon that was unfamiliar to me. There was talk of homeschooling and patriarchy with many uses of the word multigenerational. But I digress.

Phillips is at his best when he is telling stories and allowing the stories to share the joys and beauties of family life. “The Animal Fair,” his chapter on the many animals that have been pets to his family is as humorous as it is poignant. He says rightly that “Pets tend to accumulate.” Once parents have opened the doors to one pet, others will inevitably follow. This has proven true in the Phillips family. “From rabbits to goats, tarantulas to chickens, dogs, horses, cats, fish, cows, crabs, birds, reptiles, vultures, and even baby deer—at some point or another, they have all lived with, beside, and even on top of the Phillips family.” Through the chapter he describes some of the best and some of the worst pets they’ve had, tells the awful truth about chickens, and pleads with the readers never, ever to trust a Llama (and especially so when it lowers its ears). And through the funny stories, he tells how pets have blessed his family, taught responsibility, and even forced the children to grapple with tough lessons on mortality. With its shades of James Herriot and Farley Mowat, this chapter is the book’s finest. You can download it and read it here.

“The Man’s Library” warms the heart of this avid reader and challenges me with the importance of not only building my own library, but beginning to build one for my son (and daughters) as well. “The League of Grateful Sons” shares what Phillips learned from filming a documentary with survivors of the battle of Iwo Jima and the children of some who did not survive.

As the book comes to its final chapters, it transitions from stories to essays and, sadly, becomes weaker. Here Phillips shows his hand, explaining more fully the emphases of his ministry. He espouses the importance of quiver full theology, of naming children with distinctive names (though here he is able to poke fun at himself for the unusual names he and his wife have chosen for their children), of multigenerational thinking, and so on. What were small hints in the book’s opening pages are unleashed more fully in its final chapters. This is not to say that any or all of what Phillips says here is wrong (though much of it is contentious and falls into the realm of disputable matters) but rather that the quality of writing is better when Phillips is telling stories rather than writing these essays. The book begins with a bang but ends with a bit of a fizzle.

There is a lot to learn from this man who has dedicated his career to emphasizing the importance of family but, more importantly, has dedicated his life to serving and leading the family God has given him. Your enjoyment of this book may well depend on just how much you enjoy the emphases of his ministry. Though I enjoyed reading the book (despite being convicted that my children are where they ought to be in public school, despite having only three kids, and despite never having used the word “multigenerational”), I couldn’t help but feel that the book would have been better had it been just about half as long or had the book’s second half been written in the style of the first.