Category: Parenting

Influential Fathers, Captive Kids

A businessman with a hectic schedule took a day off and went fishing with his son. This father and son talked and fished all day, even though the dad couldn’t stop thinking about the growing mountain of work that awaited him back in the office. Both...

The Word Fathers Long To Hear

On Friday we made another expedition to Deal Cemetery in Ladelle to decorate Jenny’s grave. I miss Jenny and often feel sadness because I’ll never see her again in this life. She was, after all, one-third of my small flock, and I sometimes feel wronged over...

Fear and Fatherhood: A Godly Combination

It happened one evening during family worship, and my son has not been the same since. My three-year-old son David was standing and bouncing on the couch as he looked away from me and out the window. He was sidetracked by something outside, and his lack...

Fathers: The Original “Children’s Ministers”

“What do you have for my children?” As a pastor, I have been asked that question numerous times by well-meaning parents. Essentially, they want to know what ministries the church offers for children. Their desire for the spiritual good of their kids is commendable and some...

Fathering “by the Book”

Comedian Bill Cosby once said, If the new American father feels bewildered and even defeated, let him take comfort from the fact that whatever he does in any fathering situation has a fifty percent chance of being right. I’m sure (or at least I hope) Mr....

A Father’s Spiritual Advice

On his 20th birthday, I gave my son a copy of the letter I had written him when he was just one year old. The challenges I set out for him at age one are unchanged 19 years later. I’ve excerpted portions of that “spiritual yardstick”...