Book Review – The Barber Who Wanted to Pray

In The Barber Who Wanted to Pray, the story unfolds as we join a family gathered together for family worship.  One of the children asks her father how come he could pray so beautifully.  In answer, the father tells them the true story of how Herr Peter once asked his famous client, Martin Luther, a very similar question.  Luther replies by writing the simple, yet profound classic, A Simple Way to Pray. He emphasizes three things to focus on or pray through: the Lord’s Prayer, the 10 Commandments and the Apostles’ Creed.  In the end, the family clusters together again to practice this new and exciting way of learning to pray.

I love children’s books and love that my children love books.  We were given R.C. Sproul’s book, The Prince’s Poison Cup a few years ago and my children have asked me to read and reread it.  It is a beautiful illustration of how Jesus Christ died willingly, taking God’s punishment for sin on himself and how the “poison” turns to sweet water.

When I received The Barber Who Wanted to Pray, I was expecting the same caliber of storytelling.  Alas, this was not the case.  In The Barber Who Wanted to Pray, I felt like the storyline was too forced and dry.  Much detail is given to the barber’s preparation for Luther’s shave (including a somewhat graphic musing about the possibility of killing Luther by cutting his throat with the razor!).  The opening details of the dad’s family worship routine seem overdone and geared towards providing an illustration of how family worship time could look.  Although I certainly think that such illustrations can be valuable, it felt misplaced in a children’s story.  A true test of a book’s ability to capture a child’s attention is, well, to read it to them.  Unlike The Prince’s Poison Cup, my children had a very hard time sitting through this book.

While the intent of the book (teaching our children how to pray) is very important, the execution of it in this particular book felt rushed and lacking the wonder of many of Sproul’s other children’s books.  The message of the book, especially Luther’s method of praying, is worth learning.  I would recommend those looking for resources on family worship to turn to Luther’s book itself  or to Voddie Bauchum’s book, Family Driven Faith  (a book which has issues of its own, but the chapter on family worship is invaluable.) 2/5 stars

(Thanks to Crossway’s Homeschool Book Review program for providing a review copy of this book.)

Book Review – Give Them Grace

Are you a parent who wants perfect kids?  Adjust your parenting style to any number of the hundreds of books on parenting currently in print and you’ll be the successful parent you’ve always wanted to be with the successful children you’ve always wanted!

Sadly, this is the message of many parenting books that draw the hopeful and discouraged to their pages with each new publication.  In Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus, mother and daughter team Elyse Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson want parents to be the best Christian parents they can be, raising Godly children.  So what makes this book any different?  The answer is found in the gospel and grace of Jesus Christ.  The path to successful parenting isn’t found in what parents do or even how children react to what parents do.  Such a method leads only to law and, as the book cover says, the law is “a set of standards that is not only unable to save our children, but also powerless to change them.”  Not only do they take aim at the path to successful parenting, but they offer a rethinking of what it means to be a successful parent.

Much of the book is focused, not on the behavior of the child, but rather the belief system of the parent.  You won’t find very much in the way of the “how-to’s” of child discipline, but rather solid principles intended to have parents examine their own attitudes and understanding of the concept of grace.  Further, this idea of grace is firmly grounded in what believers have been given through Christ’s finished work on the cross in paying God’s penalty for sin and obtaining our right standing before God.  Based on the parents’ understanding of gospel work in their own hearts, the authors then answer the question of successful parenting – that is pointing our children to God by modeling the grace of God in our lives.

There were two chapters that I appreciated the most: one (“The One Good Story) offers wise principles for pointing our children to the grace and love of God in various situations.  For example, the question often comes up (at least it does in my family) of which movies to allow children to watch.  Instead of giving a bulleted list of do’s and don’ts, the authors offer several questions to ask about how that movie (or other entertainment medium) will either point to or prevent them from seeing gospel truths.  In their own words, “Our hope is that if we have taught them how to discern the one good story and judge every other story by it, they’ll be better equipped to answer the wicked Imposter’s lies when they hear them.” (p.120) They also touch on the subject of modesty and, instead of going straight to the obvious question of “is it revealing?” they suggest principles that will get to the heart of the child and not simply outward appearances.

The second chapter I appreciated the most was Chapter 9 (“Weak Parents and Their Strong Savior”) in which the authors gently point out that sometimes, even after all our best efforts and trusting in God, our children may not live as believers.  This chapter dealt with seeming failure as parents.  But even here, the authors point us to the fact that God is honored and glorified in everything.  In what was perhaps the most poignant statement of the chapter, they write “What if he has called us to Jeremiah’s ministry rather than to Daniel’s? Is there room in your parenting paradigm for weakness and failure if weakness and failure glorify God?” (p.149)

Perhaps the one negative aspect of the book is the examples of conversations between parent and child.  The table in Appendix 2 (“Common Problems and the Gospel”) is helpful in keeping our focus on Christ and the gospel in various situations, but the examples of conversations given seem too overblown and forced.  While I certainly want to teach my children the beauty of the gospel and of Christ, it seems more than a little forced to relate losing a baseball game to the suffering of Christ.  There are times when we as parents simply need to be there for our children, encouraging them when they fail/lose and helping them to do better next time.  Does this mean that we are ignoring the gospel and only promoting selfish little bootstrap hoisters?  Absolutely not!  However, the adage “too heavenly minded to be of any earthly good” seems to apply here.

Give Them Grace gives us a much needed reminder as parents that changing our children’s hearts and the outcome of our parenting is not dependent on us.  Oh yes, God uses this tool for this change but ultimately it is God who does the changing.  I was encouraged to continually point my children to the love, beauty and grace of God that is ours because of Jesus.  (4/5 stars)

(Thanks to Crossway’s Homeschool Book Review program for providing a review of this book.)

Book Review – The Greener Grass Conspiracy

Every now and then, I’ll come across a book that hits me right where I need to be hit.  Such is Stephen Altrogge’s new book, The Greener Grass Conspiracy which, as can be deduced from the title, is about contentment.

Altrogge points out virtually everyone’s complicity in this conspiracy of thinking that “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.”  While he doesn’t necessarily present anything new and earth shattering, the down-to-earth perspective and humor he uses shone the light on my discontentment.   In one chapter, Altrogge points out the lies we believe in that fuel our discontentment, lies such as “God is withholding from me” or “God owes me” or “If I get it, I’ll be happy.”

Instead of constantly berating his readers for not having perfect contentment, he points the way to Godly contentment by showcasing the glories of the gospel.  He encourages the reader to focus on the blessings we have been given (such as life, health and/or food), but even with this his emphasis is to continually point to the cross.  That is not to say that Altrogge encourages a Pollyanna-ish attitude of just being glad no matter what our circumstances.  In Chapter 11, he specifically addresses those who are going through “the furnace of suffering.”  In this chapter, he says “I don’t want to give you pat, trite answers.  I don’t want to tell you just to trust in God and everything will be okay…I want to connect you to the only person who can carry you through and give you contentment in the midst of suffering.  I want to connect you to Jesus.” (pp.119-120)

Although it’s a relatively short book, this book to me is one that I need to read again, not only to be reminded of my lack of contentment in Christ but also to encourage me to do something about it.  The Greener Grass Conspiracy is a huge help in prying off the tinfoil hats of discontentment.

Many thanks to Crossway for providing a review copy of this book.   (5/5 stars)

Book Review – The Organized HomeSchooler

As the principal of the “School of Smooches,” I’m always interested in learning different ways to encourage both my wife and my children in their academic activities.  Even though it’s my wife who does 99.9% of the teaching (and more than earns her title of Director of Family Operations), I try to be on the lookout for ways in which I can help.  When I received Vicki Caruana’s book The Organized Home Schooler from Crossway’s Home School Book Review program, I was very interested in learning how we could be more organized.

In her book, Caruana goes over the importance of organization.  She points out areas where organization could be of benefit such as Thoughts (ch.3), Time (ch.4), Space (ch.5) Supplies and Materials (ch.6),  Paperwork (ch.7) and Family (ch.8).  The chapters dealing with supplies and paperwork contained the most practical information , offering advice on how best to file away your school items.  She offers good suggestions on keeping the organizational system simple (K.I.S.S.) and making sure to involve everyone.  If everyone isn’t on board, the system won’t be as effective.

Sadly, this is the extent of worthwhile nuggets from the book.  The vast majority of the book is spent trying to convince the reader of the importance of an organizational system and comparatively little amount of space actually being organized.  As I read through the book, I felt like saying “Ok, I get it.  You think organization is important.  Now where is the practical advice?”

The worst part of the book, however, was not the browbeating of “you need to be organized” but rather the spiritual implications the author made of NOT being organized and the complete misapplications of Scripture (such as her comments on Proverbs 31) in order to defend her view of organization.  According to this author, an individual who is “anxious, confused, full of despair, fearful, [and] even angry…[is] experiencing the consequences of a disorderly life.” (p.18)  Further, in one of the end-of-chapter Check Lists, Caruana states: “I realize that my children and the success of their homeschool experience depends upon my level of organization.” (p.20)  Caruana ties disorganization together with unbelief and simply not trusting God.  Still further, Caruana gives a list of reasons why someone might not be as organized as they could be in their schedules and in response to these reasons states, “If any of these statements or others like them describe your reaction to the word schedule, I suggest you prayerfully consider your motives for saying them.” (p.48)  Even a person’s choice of “escape” is targeted by Caruana’s misinterpretation of Jesus’ invitation to “come to me and I will give you rest.”  She says, “God asks that we come to Him for rest—not to television or the Internet or even a good book.  This isn’t to say that these things are off-limits, but don’t use them as an escape.  God is our refuge and strength.  When we choose to ‘veg out,’ we leave room for the enemy to corrupt our thinking.  So as you look to rejuvenate, focus on the things above by going to God’s Word.”  (p.108)  Trite comments like these abound throughout the book that the author does not expound on or explain just what this is supposed to look like.  Apparently, the organized homeschooler should only find “rejuvenation” in reading his or her Bible and praying, a concept that I find nowhere in Scripture.

Ultimately, while the book has a few things of value, they are so wrapped up in a warped view of Scripture as to not be worth the time trying to sift them out.  Many homeschool teachers are perhaps so stressed out about having the perfect schooling system, that for them to read this book that ties their spirituality to their lack of organization would certainly do more harm than good.  A much better book on homeschooling would be “Homeschooling for the Rest of Us” by Sonya Haskins.  (1/5 stars)

(Thanks to Crossway’s Homeschool Book Review program for providing a review copy of this book.)

The Best Books of 2010

At the beginning of 2010, I set a goal to read at least 30 books this year. As the year winds down, I thought I would take a look back at the best of these. I’ve tried to put them into five different categories: Biographical, Theological, Historical, Advice/Self-help, or Children’s Books. Here is a list of the books I’ve read this year (authors are in parentheses).

Biographical
Abigail Adams (Woody Holton)
Einstein (Walter Isaacson)
Thomas Jefferson (Joyce Appleby)
Night (Elie Wiesel)
John Newton (Jonathan Aitken)
Devoted (Dick Hoyt)
Billy Graham: His Life and Influence (David Aikman)
Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power (Robert Dallek)
Father Fiction (Donald Miller)
My Father, Maker of the Trees (Eric Irivuzumugabe)

Theological
What is the Gospel? (Greg Gilbert)
Scandalous (D.A. Carson)
In My Place Condemned He Stood (J.I. Packer)
Radical (David Platt)
Should We Fire God? (Jim Pace)
The Cost of Discipleship (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
Start Here (Alex and Brett Harris)
Imaginary Jesus (Matt Mikalatos)
Hear No Evil (Matthew Paul Turner)
Humility (CJ Mahaney)
Where is God? (John Townsend)
A Sweet and Bitter Providence (John Piper)
God’s Passion for His Glory (John Piper and Jonathan Edwards)
The Screwtape Letters (C.S. Lewis)

Historical (non-biographical)
The Terrible Hours (Peter Maas)
The Ghost Map (Steven Johnson)
Hamilton’s Blessing: The Extraordinary Life and Times of our National Debt (John Steele Gordon)
On Hallowed Ground: The Story of Arlington National Cemetery (Robert M. Poole)
Handel’s Messiah: Comfort for God’s People (Calvin R. Stapert)

Self-help/Advice
Bringing Up Girls (James Dobson)
What your son isn’t telling you (Michael Ross & Susie Shellenberger)
Homeschooling for the Rest of Us (Sonya Haskins)
Parenting in the Pew (Robbie Castleman)
Just Do Something (Kevin DeYoung)

Children’s Books
The Prince’s Poison Cup (R.C. Sproul)
I Love God’s Green Earth (Michael & Caroline Carroll)
Big Picture Story Bible (David Helm)
Mighty Acts of God (Starr Meade)
The Church History ABCs (Stephen J. Nichols)
God’s Mighty Acts in Creation (Starr Meade)
The Charlatan’s Boy (Jonathan Rogers)

Since there were several very good books in most of the categories, narrowing it down to the best one was difficult.  Out of the five categories, here are my favorites (where applicable, I’ve linked to my fuller review of the books).

Biographical: While there were several books about great men such as John Newton and Billy Graham, my favorite was Abigail Adams: A Life, by Woody Holton.  Holton does an excellent job of highlighting Adams’ strengths as well as her weaknesses, giving us a well-rounded, quite readable biography of this great woman.  He certainly does Adams justice in examining her life as a woman and not simply as the wife of a founding father.

Theological: J.I. Packer’s In My Place Condemned He Stood was the best book in this category.  The arguments and Scriptural support he and others (such as Mark Dever and C.J. Mahaney) present in support of the teaching of penal substitutionary atonement is stimulating.  Packer’s chapter “Saved by His Precious Blood” taken from his introduction to John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ is a must read.

Historical: This was the easiest category to pick a favorite.  Robert M. Poole’s narrative of the history of Arlington National Cemetery in On Hallowed Ground is, in a word, excellent.  Poole has taken what could have been a dry retelling of a graveyard’s history, and has written instead an intimate account of a cherished resting place for many men and women.

Self-help/Advice: My favorite for this category was a toss-up between Kevin DeYoung’s Just Do Something and Sonya Haskins’ Homeschooling for the Rest of Us.   Just Do Something is crammed full with very practical advice.  While the main target audience seems to be college age readers, there is much in the book that more mature readers will glean from.  Ultimately, if we are seeking to follow God’s will of desire as found in Scripture, we can have the freedom to make choices and, as the title suggests, just DO something.  In Homeschooling for the Rest of Us, Haskins encourages the homeschooling family (or prospective homeschooling family) to first and most importantly develop positive parent-child relationships.  She also addresses the topic of routines, academics, extracurricular activities, and the seemingly all-pervasive concern of socialization.  I was very encouraged by Haskins down-to-earth approach.

Children’s Books:  This was by far the hardest category to pick a favorite, mainly because there were so many great books sent to me for review.  Many of them were sent to me from Crossway’s Homeschool Book Review program.  Crossway consistently publishes very solid children’s books.  Because there were so many good books, I’ve only been able to narrow it down to the top three, each equally good.

The first is The Church History ABCs by Stephen J. Nichols.   Each letter of the alphabet features a prominent figure from the history of the church.  There are the more well-known ones such as Calvin, Edwards and Spurgeon.  But there are also some not-so-well-known people like John Donne, Hippolytus (“Let’s get one thing straight, my name is Hippolytus, not hippopotamus”), Tertullian, Vivaldi and Florence Young.  Each person is accompanied by a brief informational snippet about that particular person, written from his or her perspective.

The second is God’s Mighty Acts in Creation, by Starr Meade.   While the book is rather small (only 109 pages), it is jam packed with wonderful truths about God as illustrated through creation.  Because each chapter is a short two pages long, it is perfect for family devotions or for middle aged children to read on their own.  Very few children’s books have left me excited to start using it for our family Bible time, but God’s Mighty Acts in Creation certainly left me looking forward to reading with our children the many ways God’s beauty is seen in creation.

The last, and perhaps the best of the best is a book given to us entitled The Prince’s Poison Cup by R.C. Sproul.   Every time I read this story to my children, I am moved by the love God has for us.  In the story, a grandfather tells his granddaughter the story of a people who disobeyed a King’s command not to drink from a beautiful fountain.  Even though the fountain was beautiful to look at, the water was bad for them and turned their hearts to stone.  In order to heal them, the King’s son takes his Father’s cup to another fountain in the City of Man to drink the poisonous brew, even though he knows the drink will kill him.  The Prince dies, but is raised again by his Father.  As a result, many of the people’s hearts are changed and love the King once more.

The Biblical parallels in this story are unmistakable.  Sproul weaves the story in a way that makes it very easy to point out to children the similarities to Jesus’ death and why it was that he died.  There are two strong parallels made to the Scriptures.  The first is that Jesus (the Prince) willingly does what His Father asks of him out of love for the Father and for the people.  The second parallel is that because Jesus drank the cup of poison made up of the Father’s anger, this poison/anger is turned into the sweetest water.  It is a beautiful picture of the love and grace we find in Christ’s atoning sacrifice for us.

And that’s the list for 2010!  What books have you read this year that you would recommend?

Book Review – God’s Mighty Acts in Creation

There is an abundance of children’s books that talk about the various aspects of creation.  These books usually go something like this: “On day 1, God created this, on day 5 God created that, etc.  What a wonderful world we live in!”  Illustrations abound picturing the different things created on different days.  More often than not, what is missing is turning a child’s focus from the creation back to the Creator.  When asked to review Starr Meade’s book God’s Mighty Acts in Creation, I thought this would simply be another book along those lines.

However, from the first chapter in the book, I realized that this book was very different from other stereotypical creation books.  Meade does follow the Day 1, Day 2 pattern seen in Genesis 1, but that’s as far as the similarities go.  Each two-page chapter discusses something created on a particular day and how that created thing illustrates an aspect of God’s character.  For example, for Day 1 Meade points us to the holiness of God, illustrated in the creation of light (“God is light and in him is no darkness at all” – 1 John 1:5); or to Jesus, the Light of the World.  We see the mountains pointing us to the eternity and unchangeableness of God.  God’s goodness is seen in the abundant variety of foods that were created.  The vastness of space points us to a God without limit.  Additionally, for each thing created, we are told about a time when God overruled how the created thing usually operates, showing that God is owns every part of creation and can do what he pleases with it.  For example, he showed his power over the sun and moon when he made them stand still for Joshua and the children of Israel.  Meade starts with an aspect of creation and beautifully draws our attention to the One who created it.

While the book is rather small (only 109 pages), it is jam packed with wonderful truths about God as illustrated through creation.  Because each chapter is a short two pages long, it is perfect for family devotions or for middle aged children to read on their own.  Very few children’s books have left me excited to start using it for our family Bible time, but God’s Mighty Acts in Creation certainly does have me looking forward to reading with our children the many ways God’s beauty is seen in creation.

Disclaimer: Thanks to Crossway’s Homeschool Book Review program for providing a review copy of this book.  I was under no obligation to write a positive review.

Book Review – The Church History ABCs

Children’s books on church history are rare, good ones even rarer and ones that can appeal to all ages rarer still.  The Church History ABCs by Stephen J. Nichols and Ned Bustard is a children’s book that certainly falls into the latter category.  You would think that a book about church history would be geared towards older children and a book about ABCs would be to kindergarten-age children.  How then does Nichols and Bustard manage to quite successfully marry the two concepts?

Each letter of the alphabet features a prominent figure from the history of the church.  There are the more well-known ones such as Calvin, Edwards and Spurgeon.  But there are also some not-so-well-known people like John Donne, Hippolytus (“Let’s get one thing straight, my name is Hippolytus, not hippopotamus”), Tertullian, Vivaldi and Florence Young.  Each person is accompanied by a brief informational snippet about that particular person, written from his or her perspective.

The beauty of each letter/person is that every piece of information can stand on its own depending on the age of the children.  For instance: “’A’ is for apricot, apple and Augustine – Africa’s ancient bishop.”  That alone is enough to teach a younger student to associate a letter with a name as well as other common items such as an apple.  For the student that is a little older, the biographical information can be included.  For the more curious/able student desiring to know more, there is still further information about each person at the end of the book.

The real fun part, however, is in the illustrations and can probably be turned into a game of sorts.  Hidden in each illustration are clues about that person that will be answered either in the brief biographical sketch on the same page or in the fuller paragraphs at the end of the book.  For example, “A” is for apricot and apple, but why is there a pear on Augustine’s page?  What’s up with the heart John Calvin is holding?  Why on earth is Jonathan Edwards wearing an Indian headdress and eating chocolate?  Why is Spurgeon holding a sword and a trowel?  The subtleties in each illustration make discovering more “secrets” about that person all the more interesting.  (And don’t think we didn’t notice the cigars in Spurgeon’s pocket!)

This is an excellent resource for children of all ages to learn about great people God has used down through church history.  I’d give this book 6 out of 5 stars if I could.

(Thanks to Crossway’s Homeschool Book Review Program for the opportunity to read and review this book.)

Book Giveaway – Family Driven Faith

First, congrats to Michelle, winner of last week’s giveaway of Woody Holton’s Abigail Adams.  Enjoy the book, Michelle – it’s a great read.

Up for grabs this week is Family Driven Faith by Voddie Baucham Jr.  Here’s a blurb from the cover:

Family Driven Faith equips Christian parents with the tools they need to raise children biblically in a post-Christian, anti-family soceity.  Voddie Baucham…shows that God has not left us alone in raising godly children.  He has given us timeless precepts and principles for multi-generational faithfulness, especially in Deuteronomy 6.  God’s simple command to Moses to teach the Word diligently to the children of Israel serves as the foundation of Family Driven Faith.  This bold new book is an urgent call to parents–and the church–to return to biblical discipleship in and through the home.

For an in-depth review of this book, check out my earlier blog posting (in which I gave the book 3 out of 5 stars).

To enter the drawing for Family Driven Faith, you can do one or more of the following options:

1. Leave a comment below.
2. Post a link to the drawing on your blog
3. On Twitter, retweet the following: @Eskypades: Book Giveaway!  Enter to win Family Driven Faith at http://wp.me/pzfPF-eg

You can earn up to three entries for the drawing, one for each option above.  I’ll randomly select the winner sometime Friday afternoon, July 16, 2010 and post another book giveaway.  (Giveaway is open to US residents only.)

Thanks to Amy at Crossway for providing this copy of Family Driven Faith.

Free books!

Here are several opportunities to get some great free books during the month of July.

Christianaudio.com gives away a free audio book each month and this month’s book is A.W. Tozer’s classic The Pursuit of God.  Summary of the book from christianaudio: “During a train trip from Chicago to Texas in the late 1940′s, A.W. Tozer began to write The Pursuit Of God. He wrote all night, the words coming to him as fast as he could put them down. When the train pulled into McAllen, the rough draft was done. Although written in such a remarkably short period of time, Tozer’s passionate classic offers not only a deeper understanding of Biblical Truth, but a personal encounter with the very Source of that Truth.”  Enter coupon code JUL2010 when checking out.

Next up, Crossway (who is in my opinion one of the best Christian book publishers) is giving away the Kindle version of Greg Gilbert’s What is the Gospel? In his review, James MacDonald says “Greg Gilbert contends that the current evangelical understanding of the gospel is lost in a fog of confusion. He burns away that fog by shining fresh light on an old subject. Gilbert writes in a clear, concise, and colloquial style that will especially appeal to young adults. What Is the Gospel? will sharpen your thinking about the gospel, etching it more deeply on your heart so you can share the good news of Jesus Christ with boldness. It will leave you pondering the extent to which the gospel has impacted your own life. It will cause you to cry out with thankfulness to God for what Christ has accomplished.”   If you don’t have a Kindle, not to worry.  Amazon has the free Kindle for PC application that is just as good (although not quite as portable).

Finally, don’t forget that each Friday during the month of July, I’ll be giving away a new book.  There’s still time to enter the drawing for this week’s book, Woody Holton’s biography Abigail Adams.  Check out the link for more details.

Happy reading!

Book Review – Family Driven Faith

Something is missing in evangelical circles and that something is our children. Statistics show that children raised in evangelical (and I use that term as loosely as the statistical studies do) families are leaving the church at an alarming rate. In his book, Family Driven Faith, Voddie Baucham addresses this issue head on, placing the blame for these departures squarely at the feet of the parents. He begins by bringing the problem into focus by presenting the above mentioned statistics and illustrations from his own experience as a father, pastor and speaker. In today’s society, parents have failed to instruct their children what the Bible teaches, but have instead abdicated this responsibility to the church, the Sunday School, and the youth group.

Basing his book primarily on Deut.6:4-9, Baucham encourages Christian families to accept the responsibility that is theirs in raising children. We shouldn’t be satisfied in teaching our children how to accomplish things in school, sports, society, etc, but rather to instill the faith of the gospel in them through active, purposeful parenting and biblical discipleship. The responsibility of discipleship rests with the parents and should include instruction in such things as maintaining a biblical worldview. As Baucham states, “Teaching our children to think biblically in these five basic areas [our view of God, man, truth, knowledge and ethics] will go a long way toward establishing a foundation for biblical thinking in their lives” (pp.76-77).

While overall the book has many good, insightful things to say, the chapters focusing more on the family unit as a family (as opposed to the family unit as a part of a church) were quite good. The chapter on creating and maintaining a family worship time in the home is especially good and perhaps worth the price of the book by itself. In it, he discusses the need for a family worship time and gives the following seven very practical and sound steps to establishing this worship time (pp.139-142):

• Family worship must be born of conviction.
• Family worship begins with the head of the household.
• Family worship must be scheduled.
• Family worship must be simple.
• Family worship must be natural.
• Family worship must be mandatory.
• Family worship must be participatory.

He follows these seven steps with seven blessings that are a result of family worship (pp.142-148):

• Family worship honors God.
• Family worship will draw your family closer to God.
• Family worship will draw your family closer to one another.
• Family worship will lay a foundation for multigenerational faithfulness.
• Family worship will expose spiritual weaknesses in your home.
• Family worship will serve as a training ground for smaller children.
• Family worship will make corporate worship more meaningful.

There were a couple of things I especially appreciated in this chapter. The first was his pointing out that family worship serves as a training ground for little children. It took Sarah and I a little while to realize this. We would be trying to train Jeremiah to sit still in church, but weren’t requiring the same thing when we had our family prayer time. As a result, Sunday mornings were rather difficult to say the least. Once we started training him to sit and listen during our family prayer time, we found that his “sitting still” abilities were improving in church also.

The second thing I appreciated in this chapter was what he said about family worship laying a foundation for faithfulness in future generations. His statement that “Children who grow up in homes that had daily family worship will see it as the norm” (p.144) rung true for me. I can still very distinctly remember our family devotions we had while I was growing up. As each child was able, we would take turns reading the Bible, reading a little Bible story geared towards children, and praying for missionaries. The impact of this family tradition will perhaps never be fully known, but I am forever grateful for my parents teaching me the importance of family devotions.

Beyond this chapter, the author had some good things to say regarding the interactions within the family, the importance of the father leading in the home, and the vast importance of teaching children the Bible. Unfortunately, I found much of the book to be long on illustrations & sage platitudes but short on Biblical explanations or defense. For example, on pages 159-161, he discusses the need for men to prioritize our families, but he fills almost the entire two-page section with his illustration, devoting only one single, small paragraph to basically saying “Don’t sacrifice your family on the altar of prosperity.” He encourages men to ask the tough questions, but doesn’t give guidance as to what those questions are. Much of the book follows this style of being wide in its scope of topic, but quite narrow in defending the author’s stance.

Further, I found much of the book echoing the style of many an evangelist I’ve heard that would use illustration after illustration to back up his point or soapbox issue, but not going into Scripture to defend it. Even when he states, for instance on p.161 regarding the question, “Should Mom work outside of the home?” that we should first “seek to understand what the Bible teaches on the matter,” nowhere in the following 5-page section does he even bring what the Bible says into the equation. The one time he does quote Scripture, it is seemingly in support of women doing what they must do to be a Proverbs 31 woman, even working outside the home.

Perhaps the area where he misses the mark on a greater level is when he discusses the family in the context of the church, mainly in the last two chapters. He is very correct when he states his case that the current situation in American churches is incredibly bleak when it comes to what our children are learning. His question, “What role does the church play in the process [of discipling children]” is exactly the question we must ask ourselves. He focuses much of his effort in arguing against the current approach to family ministry and specifically youth ministry. However, in arguing against the current approach, he throws the baby out with the bath water, so to speak, in rejecting the segregated approach entirely. The three problems of the current approach he lists aren’t very well argued from Scripture, if at all. In discussing the first problem, that there is no clear biblical mandate for the current [i.e., segregated] approach, he doesn’t present an argument at all, but rather spends the section seemingly excusing those who do follow the segregated approach. In fact, as he correctly points out, Scripture doesn’t mention anything one way or the other on the topic. (Arguments for or against the regulatory principle is a whole other topic entirely!)

The second problem as he sees it, that the current approach may actually work against the biblical model, is a good argument. But here again, this same problem could be applied to any approach used. Any approach may work against the biblical model, but that doesn’t mean that it will. His argument from Titus 2 regarding older women teaching the younger assumes that this teaching is done in the context of a Sunday School class. His question, “How can the older women instruct the younger women if everyone is in a Sunday School class with people within nine months of their own age?” is a bit of a straw man argument. Further, the same question can be reworded “How can older women teach the younger women if they are not meeting together in a setting conducive specifically for this purpose?” Here again, he fails to draw upon Scriptural support to argue against the segregated approach.

Ironically, in the last chapter and perhaps without meaning to, he twice contradicts everything he said about the segregated approach being wrong. Up to this point, he has made statements such as “We do not divide families into component parts….We see the church as a family of families” (p.191); or “Another distinctive of the family-integrated church is its insistence on the integration of all ages in virtually all of its activities.” (p.193) But then on page 197, he begins an illustration of something that happened at a Father’s Council meeting, a monthly meeting just for men! The purposes of these meetings are for “fellowship, prayer, vision casting, church business, etc.” How can a church who supposedly includes the entire family in everything justify such meetings? Perhaps it is because they see the importance of a “segregated” time for men to learn how to lead. But this then begs the question, “If a segregated approach is unbiblical, where do they get the biblical support for such meetings?” and secondly, “Why are these types of meetings deemed wise, but yet meetings of older and younger women are not, or even youth meetings?” The second contradictory example is found on p.209 where, in discussing the fact that many homeschool families are not evangelical, he recommends that a church start a Sunday School specifically geared toward homeschoolers. This does not line up with what he espoused earlier regarding the segregated approach.

Overall, there are many things in the book that need to be said and said repeatedly and loudly. Unless we as Christians in general wake up to the reality that our children are not learning of God through either our direct teaching nor by indirect example through our lives, what hope do we have of their continuing in the Christian faith? I would recommend this book (with some reservation) since there are several things that can be learned from the book, especially in the area of family worship, which I thought was the best chapter in the book. However, unless our teaching and beliefs are lined up solidly with Scriptural support, we are simply following another fad or method, no matter how great it sounds.

(Note: I wrote this review about a year ago, but I’m posting it again as part of Crossway’s Homeschool Book Review Program.  Thanks to Amy at Crossway for sending a review copy which I’ll be giving away in July.)