Making an IMPACT on Our Family!
Genesis 19:12-14; Joshua 2:17-19

Just look at the difference in Lot and Rahab. Both made an impact on their families. Lot in his decision to cast his tent towards Sodom. Rahab in her decision to rescue the Israelite spies. Were they both "saved"? It would seem so. The question is not just are we saved? But are we making an IMPACT on the ones that should be the very most important to us in this world.

Billy Sunday, one of the great evangelists, had a message that he preached about the evils of alcohol. One writer said that he had seen from two to twelve grown men actually faint during the message every time he preached it. That is making an impact. But, Billy Sunday commented, his biggest regret in life is that he did not spend more time trying to reach his own children.

One writer said…He may have preached family values, but his own family was a wreck. His sons' conduct, reports Martin, "made a mockery of the version of the gospel to which their father had committed his life ... They found themselves entangled in a web of divorce, remarriage, allegations of immorality, litigation, and debt." One son, George, committed suicide in 1932.

So I ask you the questions, "Can we have an impact on our family? Can we have a positive impact on our family?" YES, YES, MOST CERTAINLY YES! But it will take a concentrated effort as well as a consecrated life.

Be Conspicuous for your family (be there – spend time)

Sacrifice if need be
Show and have a genuine interest

Be Courteous to your family (be nice)

Try praising your wife, even if it does frighten her at first.
Billy Sunday

Respect for your family – to have mutual respect, you must respect them.
Respect for others when they are not there.

Be Caring for your family (be concerned)

So crucial that our family knows we love them
We must put them before self, church, job, friends, and more distant family!

Be Consecrated to Christ before your family (be close to God)

Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile.
Billy Sunday

Allows you to pray for them (with confidence)
Allows them to see the power of Christ in ones life

Be Consistent with your moral values everyday in front of your family (be good)

Don't do anything you would not have your grown child do.
They will become what you show them they can get away with.

Cat's in the Cradle
by Harry Chappin

My child arrived just the other day,
He came to the world in the usual way;
But there were planes to catch, and bills to pay;
He learned to walk while I was away,
And he was talkin' afore I knew it,
And as he grew he'd say,
"I'm going to be like you, dad,
You know I'm going to be like you."

And the cat's in the cradle, and the silver spoon,
The little boy blue, and the man in the moon.
"When you comin' home, Dad?"
"Well I don't know when,
But we'll have a good time then,
Son, you know we'll have a good time, then."

Well my son turned ten just the other day.
"He said thanks for the ball, Dad,
Come on can you teach me to throw?"
I said, "Not today, I've got a lot to do."
He said, "That's okay!"
And he walked away, but his smile never dimmed.
And he said, "I'm going to be like him, yeah,
You know I'm going to be like him. "

And the cat's in the cradle, and the silver spoon,
The little boy blue, and the man in the moon.
"When you comin' home, Dad?"
"Well I don't know when,
But we'll have a good time then,
Son, you know we'll have a good time,then."

Well he came home from college just the other day.
So much like a man that I just had to say,
"Son I'm proud of you, can you sit for awhile?"
He shook his head and he said with a smile,
"What I'd really like is to borrow the keys,
See you later, can I have them please?"

"When you coming home, Son?"
"I don't know when, but we'll get together then, Dad,
You know we'll have a good time, then."

Well' I've long since retired and my son's moved away,
And I called him up just the other day.
I said, "I'd sure like to see you if you don't mind."
He said, "I'd love to dad if I can find the time.
But you see my new job's a hassle and the kids have the flu
But it's sure been nice talkin' to you,
It's been nice talkin' to you"

And as I hung up the phone,
it occurred to me, he'd grown up just like me,
My boy was just like me.

And the cat's in the cradle, and the silver spoon,
The little boy blue, and the man in the moon.
"When you comin' home Son?"
"Well I don't know when,
But we'll have a good time then, Dad,
You know we'll have a good time, "then.

06/15/2002 By RANDALL BALMER

Nothing causes more anxiety for people of faith than the spiritual status of their children. I began to understand this about a decade ago when I visited a Bible camp in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. There I saw teenagers seated around a campfire, talking about giving their lives to Jesus.

For many of them – and especially for their parents – the week at camp was the culmination of years of preparation. Parents had socialized their children in the church, in Sunday school and youth group, in confirmation and Bible camp, all the while hoping and praying for evidence of conversion.

Many children reared in religious households, including some at the Bible camp, surrender to these expectations, but the path to faith for others is more difficult. The more I listened that night at the campfire the more I picked up another refrain. One by one, teenagers told of giving their lives to Jesus last year at camp or the summer before. They had fallen away from the straight and narrow, however, and were now determined to "rededicate" their lives to Jesus.

I began that night to detect a pattern. Forlorn teenagers sought desperately to claim their parents' faith for themselves, yet they somehow fell short of the mark, time and time again.

I also saw myself that night. I saw a preacher's kid who had tried over the years to get it right, to conjure the same piety that his parents had, to claim that elusive "victory in Jesus" that he had heard about so often in church.

As I reflected on what I saw at camp as well as my own experience at Bible camp decades earlier, it occurred to me that, paradoxically, my father's faith had, in some respects, made it difficult for me to claim the faith for myself. Having grown up in the church and having heard stories about the heroic conversions of others, I was fairly certain that my own spiritual narrative would pale by comparison.

That problem was not new. Consider the case of David and Absalom in the Hebrew Bible or the Prodigal Son in the New Testament. The Puritans of New England faced a crisis because the second generation simply could not live up to the religious standards of their parents, the founding generation who had left England to carve a godly commonwealth out of the howling wilderness of Massachusetts. Other families faced similar generational crises: the Mathers of the 17th century and the Beechers of the 19th century. The evangelist Billy Sunday spent his final years mourning the waywardness of his children, their failure to claim the faith for their own.

The volume of mail I received on the Bible camp chapter in Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory – far more than for anything else I've ever written – suggested to me that I'd struck a nerve and emboldened me to spend most of this past year talking with people who'd grown up in religious households. How had their background shaped them, even if they'd left the faith? What do they appreciate about growing up in a religious home? What do they regret?

The stories, as you might imagine, are diverse. Some despise the faith of their parents, and others have embraced it with no apparent difficulty. Some of the recollections are humorous, others bring tears to the eye, but it is clear that the religious upbringing of everyone I talked to had left an indelible stamp.

That's true for me as well. My father, a minister of the gospel for more than 40 years, passed away several years ago. My four younger brothers and I surrounded his deathbed, and it occurs to me now that the diversity of stories I found in my conversations these past months were present there in the room. My youngest brother is a youth pastor, but another brother went through a tempestuous adolescent rebellion. Several of my brothers had a fairly easy time claiming my parents' faith for their own.

My own path, however, was far from straight and narrow. It resembles more a roller coaster or a labyrinth. I spent decades raging against my religious upbringing, resentful of spending all those years in church, missing out on friendships and Little League, movies and school dances.

But somehow, through grace and perseverance, I found my way home. My faith is not identical to that of my father, but it's pretty close, and I'm convinced that whatever character I possess now in middle age was forged by pushing against my religious upbringing.

Thanks, Dad.

Randall Balmer is the author of Growing Pains: Learning to Love My Father's Faith (Brazos Press) and numerous other books. He is the Ann Whitney Olin Professor of American Religion at Columbia University.