Making Jesus Central in Your Family’s Life

1I am not a perfect parent. And I don’t have perfect kids! If you have any doubts about either of these facts, I’ll let you tag along with my family any day of the week and you’ll see that we struggle with the same kinds of problems that other families do.

But from the very beginning of our parenting journey, Catherine and I have made some very deliberate and intentional choices in how we raise our kids, with the goal of helping them to see Jesus as the One at the very center of their lives – and our family’s life too.

At any point in your kids’ life – whether the leash is short with young kids/infants, or the leash is longer with teenagers – you can do things to help exalt Jesus in their eyes. I’ll get to some ways you can do this with music and worship, but first here are some important foundational ways you can help your kids see and savor Jesus Christ.

Jesus as the solution to every problem
There are a wide variety of problems that our kids and families face. From little-kid problems, to big-kid problems, to family problems, and to world problems, parents are constantly helping their kids navigate and respond to problems. As parents, we can see problems as an opportunity to gently, simply, non-dogmatically, yet consistently point them to seeing Jesus as the solution.

Jesus as the protector/defender
There are imagined fears (are there monsters in the closet?). There are real fears (could that tornado I heard about on the radio hit our house?). There are potential fears (what if this happens?, what if that happens?, etc.). My job as a parent is to show my kids that Jesus is Lord, Protector, Defender, and Sovereign over all things. Our security isn’t in a special blanket, or my earthly strength. It’s in Jesus’ hands.

Jesus as really real
Kids can sniff out when you’re telling them something that isn’t true. When I say to one of my daughters “you’re the most beautiful girl in the world”, they know that I haven’t seen all the girls in the world. But when I tell them the truest thing of all – that Jesus is with them, he loves them, and they can trust him – the Holy Spirit preaches to them “that’s true!” Never stop telling your kids how real and relevant King Jesus is in their lives.

Jesus as the greatest kind of love
Shower your kids with love, affection, and blessing. And make sure they know where it comes from. It comes from Jesus, whose love for us is secured, eternal, unearned, and unchanging. Articulate a gospel-love for your kids: that won’t ever change, that is always abundant, and is unaffected by their performance. And tell them Jesus loves them more than even you do.

Jesus as the quick forgiver
Jesus doesn’t make us sit in time-out and stew over our rotten sinfulness before he finally offers us forgiveness. He’s quick to forgive, and eager to restore. Consequences of sin are one thing, but the shame from sin is another. Jesus doesn’t shame us, so neither should we shame our kids. Be quick to forgive your kids, and insist that they be quick to forgive one another. We like to use the phrase in our house (after someone has been forgiven) “now it’s like it never happened”. That’s how it is in Christ, and that’s how it should be in our homes.

Jesus as the invisible presence
He’s with you in your room, kitchen, minivan, school, airplane, and doctor’s office. Jesus is present with us by his Spirit at all times. Remind your kids that Jesus isn’t some dude they hear about on Sundays. He’s alive! He’s really real! And he’s present in their lives at all times and in all places.

Jesus as the Lion
I wrote a post a few months ago on the powerful story of Jesus as the Lion from C.S. Lewis’ The Horse And His Boy. I encourage you to read that article if you haven’t before.

I want my kids to see Jesus as the Lion! Always with them, defending them, protecting them, loving them, hearing their cries, and at work in the events of their lives even when they feel all alone.

I’ve taught my kids that “Jesus is like a Lion who lives inside of us. And when we worship Him, He roars”. So when my oldest daughter is scared of going downstairs to get her shoes, I encourage her to just say/sing the name of Jesus. And she does! It’s a wonderful demonstration of the power of the name of Jesus.

And with those foundations laid, now a few quick words about how to encourage an atmosphere of worship in our homes:

Encouraging Worship in Our Homes

First, even though this post is a few years old (and was written before we had our third child), it lays out our routine in our home, and what we’ve found to be effective. I encourage you to read it.

Second, let me just say how powerful setting up a routine with your kids can be. Whether it’s a morning or an evening routine doesn’t matter. All of us have different families, with different bedtimes, different demands, and different personalities. But none of us are the Lord of our families. Jesus is. We must prioritize training our families to stop – every day – and acknowledge Jesus as Lord, and to take time to praise/thank him, and pray to him. When a child knows a routine, they will hold their parents (and even babysitters!) accountable to stick to it.

Third, don’t allow your lack of musical giftedness to be an excuse for not leading your kids in worship. Buy/stream worship music and have it on in your house or car. Put it on in the house when the atmosphere is tense. Sing some simple songs before bedtime. It doesn’t have to be awesome. You’re just planting seeds. You are giving your kids what they’re not getting many other places: Jesus.

Final Crucial Concepts

1. Make Jesus central to everything. Every pain, joy, routine, and activity is an opportunity to point your kids to Jesus. They start to get the idea after a while.

2. Allow Jesus to take the pressure off of you: to be perfect in all things, protect your kids from all dangers, provide for your family in all ways, and carry everything on your shoulders. Your kids need to know that you need Jesus too.

3. Shower your blessing and the cross of Christ on your kids. Every night, your final word to your kids should be Jesus’ final word to us: His great love, His blessing, and His delight.

I say to each of my girls something really close to this every night:

“May Jesus bless you, refresh you, fill you with His Spirit, guard you, guide you, and protect you all the days of your life. May He use you in powerful ways. May you grow to love Him, worship Him, and be faithful to Him and His word. (During this next part I make the sign of the cross on their foreheads.) In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.”

Then I wrap my arms around them and tell them over and over again how much I love them.

The amazing thing is that the next day they want to hear it all over again. And I want to say it all over again.

Our job is not to be perfect parents raising perfect kids perfectly. Our job is to raise our kids in an atmosphere of God’s abundant love, centered at all times on Jesus, so that one day (in the blink of an eye) when we let the leash out all the way, they will still be tied to the One who loves them more than their parents do.

A New Word: Exaltatation

1Yesterday at the end of our 11:15am service, when communion was wrapping up, I made up a word. It’s a good one, and I think we should all add it to our worship vocabulary.

It came out when I was encouraging the congregation to offer words/prayers of thanksgiving and praise to God. And in my mental search for the word “exaltation” (which is indeed an actual word), I was faced with all of the different options:

1. Exalt. 2. Exalting. 3. Exalted. 4. Exaltation. 5. ExxonMobil.

And instead of using any of those existing options, I chose to make up a new one.

So something like this came out of my mouth: “Let’s offer our exaltatation to the Lord”.

That extra syllable – the addition of the “at” that don’t really need to be there – really makes that word pop in a new way. To use a classical music term: it adds umph. Or oomph if you’re from the south. In other words, the extra “at” is where it’s at.

Exaltatation. It’s harder to say, harder to spell, and harder to understand, but it’s got pizzaz written all over it. Or maybe pizza written all over it. “Make that one extra large pizza with pizzaz, please, with some exaltatation on the side.”

If I had just used the already existing word, “exaltation”, things would have gone just fine. But that extra syllable, resulting in the invention of a new word, kicked things in a different gear. I recommend you use this new word as soon as you can.

You’re welcome. Happy exaltatating.

Recommending “Sing the Bible with Slugs and Bugs”

1If you have kids, know kids, once were a kid, are ever around kids, ever lead worship for kids, ever lead worship for people who are kids, or are currently a kid, you should most definitely buy Randall Goodgame’s album “Sing the Bible with Slugs and Bugs”. Buy it from www.slugsandbugs.com (or on iTunes).

It’s been out since February 2015, so I’m a little late to the game here. No one sent me a free copy, and no one asked me to review it, but my wife bought it over the summer and it’s quickly become our family’s soundtrack.

We listen to it with our kids in the car, or around the breakfast table, or when a bad case of the grumpies has infected the house.

I listen to it when I’m driving around town or running some of the trails behind my neighborhood.

And I’m using more and more of the songs when I lead our kids and families in worship at Sunday school in-between our morning services at my church.

It’s a great album. The music, production, lyrics, balance of silly and serious, catchy melodies, and sheer amount of bible content is excellent. Depending on the song, you’ll hear Randall joined by The Watoto Children’s Choir  – EDIT: The African Children’s Choir – , and/or Sally Lloyd Jones, and/or some of the best Nashville singers and musicians who just happen to be Randall’s buddies. Oh, and Dracula and some pretty jazzy bees too. Man it’s good.

I love all of the songs. In particular, I’m loving “For Us”. It’s a call and response song that helps kids learn 1 John 3:16. It’s singable, simple, easy, fun, and gets stuck in your head. And I think that’s the point.

Here’s a clip of one of the other great songs, “Two Shirts”.

Thanks, Randall, for the gift that this album is to me as a follower of Jesus, a lover of the Word, a husband and dad, and a worship leader too.

Blending The New With The Old: Two Lies

1Worship leaders and pastors who are wrestling with the important and difficult decisions about when and how to bring fresh expressions of worship into traditional services, or more traditional/liturgical elements into contemporary services have a hard job in front of them.

Blending the new with the old is not as divisive an issue as it was 10 or 20 years ago, mainly because the worship wars have largely subsided, resulting either in different styles having their own services, or a different style having prevailed after a long battle.

But many churches are still attempting unified expressions of worship, in one service, either on a weekly or occasional basis.

And for those kinds of churches, and their worship leaders and pastors who are thinking through how to blend the new with the old (and do it well), I would like to caution against two commonly believed lies.

Lie # 1: The presence of something new will result in the removal of something old

There is no reason why this has to be true. Just because you bring a drum set into the sanctuary doesn’t mean you’ll be removing organ pipes. Just because you have the choir sing an anthem doesn’t mean your electric guitarist needs to pack up his pedals. There has to be a way we can embrace a Psalm 150-esque model of robust and God-centered worship that draws out from praise from a variety of instruments across the spectrum.

And the way we begin to embrace that model is to just go ahead and do it. Will it be messy sometimes? Yes. Will we get critical responses? Yes. Will we do it perfectly? No. But we can’t just talk about putting the new and the old together in one unified expression. We actually have to make the hard decision to start doing it.

The pastor has to decide to spend some capital on teaching on it. The worship leader, and/or the worship staff, has to decide to do some hard work on moving forward as one with a broad variety of musicians with a broad variety of tastes and training. The leaders (or elders, or vestry, or deacons) have to be prepared to answer the congregation’s concerns.

Deciding to do some addition doesn’t mean you have to do subtraction. You can add without subtracting. This is the beauty of worshipping a God whose greatness is unsearchable! Lead your people with the constant refrain: “do not be afraid”.

Lie # 2: The immediate embrace of something new will bring immediate revitalization

There is no evidence that this is true. Many churches over the last few decades have rushed to incorporate contemporary music into their services, oftentimes firing their choirs and organists, and assuming that by bringing in new forms of worship, they will experience immediate growth and revitalization. Similarly, many pastors have decided to introduce a lot of liturgy and/or formality into a service unaccustomed to it, thinking that it will bring immediate health or depth.

Most of the time, however, the opposite happens.

When you drop a bomb on something, it always leaves destruction. You can’t drop a bomb on decades-long expressions of worship and expect flowers to bloom and birds to chirp sweetly. You’ll not only be dishonoring the past, but you’ll also be destroying the foundations for the future, and ensuring that nothing can grow.

Except for very rare circumstances, never introduce new elements into worship immediately. Always move slowly. laying a good foundation, lovingly pastoring your people, while also resolutely moving forward.

If a service has never ever had drums before, then plan on using drums sparingly for the first year. Yes, a whole year. Then the second year, once a month. By the third year, you might be able to do it every Sunday. Why move so incredibly slowly? So that people will go with you. You want them to go with you? Move slowly. Did I mention you should move slowly?

If a service has never had liturgy before, then start saying a Psalm together as a call to worship once a month or so. Then maybe you can decide to start saying the Lord’s Prayer together when you do communion. Maybe after a few months, or a year, you can introduce a confession and absolution (or “assurance of pardon” if the word “absolution” freaks you out). Then your congregation can see liturgy as something beautiful and helpful, not something distracting.

Don’t believe the lie that making drastic and immediate changes will result in drastic and immediately positive results. The more likely outcome is that you’ll shoot yourself in the foot.

The first lie (new things are bad) stems from fearfulness. We’re afraid of what might happen if-this or if-that. We’re afraid so-and-so might leave. For the lack of a better phrase, we care too much.

The second lie (new things will bring immediate life) stems from carelessness. We don’t care who might get hurt. We don’t care what people think. For the lack of a better phrase, we don’t care enough.

Worship leaders and pastors who are thinking and praying through how to blend the new with the old would be wise if they are continually asking these questions out in the open:
– What are we afraid of?
– What are we ignoring?

Honestly and prayerfully dialoging about those questions – and then faithfully and biblically walking forward, together, in helping lead your church to embrace a robust view of worship – might actually result in changes that will bear fruit for generations to come, long after we’ve passed the baton.

O Praise The One Who Paid My Debt

Screen Shot 2015-11-02 at 2.50.00 PMLast month I observed one of my favorite fall traditions in Northern Virginia.

I paid my Fairfax County Personal Property Tax.

For the privilege of driving on their roads, and parking my car in my own driveway, each year I get a bill in the mail from Fairfax County, based on their assessed value of the two cars Catherine and I own, meaning I have to write a big fat check by the first week of October. It’s wonderful. It fills me with autumnal joy.

And so like I’ve done many times before, I dutifully paid my taxes to satisfy the Fairfax County Government. And now they’re pleased.

But come next summer, when they send out another bill, demanding my money by the first week of October, they won’t be pleased anymore. So I’ll have to do my civic duty and satisfy their demands so that they’re happy with me, and don’t penalize me even more, or threaten to take my car away.

It’s a constant cycle of demands-payment-satisfaction, demands-payment-satisfaction, demands-payment-satisfaction, that never ends.

Sounds to me like how a lot people view worship.

God demands it. So we dutifully (if not resentfully) give it, even if it’s very occasionally. And this “payment” of sorts will satisfy God and make him happy with us. Before our next sin rolls around. Or before the next Sunday rolls around. And then God isn’t happy with us anymore, and so he demands we come to church again, and so we do, and he sees that we do, and he’s happy. For a few days. Then he’s not happy anymore.

You get the picture.

Approaching worship like we’re paying taxes to a demanding God, in order to make him happy with us, is tragic. And I think it’s pervasive, which makes it even more tragic.

Two important correctives:

First: God doesn’t demand our praise in order to make him happy.

In the words of John Piper: “God’s demand for supreme praise is his demand for our supreme happiness. Deep in our hearts we know that we are not made to be made much of. We are made to make much of something great… If he “humbly” sent us away from his beauty, suggesting we find our joy in another, we would be ruined… The reason God seeks our praise is not because he won’t be complete until he gets it. He is seeking our praise because we won’t be happy until we give it. This is not arrogance. It is love.”

I love that. God doesn’t demand our praise like a maniacal dictator who needs to puff up his own pride. He demands our praise because he knows “we won’t be happy until we give it”.

Second: Our worship isn’t payment to God. Our worship is gratefulness for Jesus’ payment.

When people know that they were dead, but now they’re alive, they praise the one who raised them to life. We were born spiritually dead. Then God made us alive together with Christ (Ephesians 2:1-8). This is the motivation for our worship. We’re not worshipping God in order to satisfy him! Jesus satisfied him perfectly for us. That’s motivation enough: simply to say “thank you” in a thousand ways, on a thousand Sundays, with a thousand tongues.

We worship God because it’s what we’re created for. And we worship God because in Christ he raised us from death to life.

So I’ll keep paying my personal property tax to Fairfax County every year. I’ll keep trying to make them happy with me. I’ll keep trying to stay on their good side.

And I’ll worship God with the full assurance of pardon from my sins, grace unending, and a heart of thanks that Jesus paid my debt forever.