Cameron and Chandler Wood grew up in the hey-day of Christian youth culture where the driving thought was, “Let the church raise your kids in the ways of the Lord.” Watching many of their friends fall away, these two brothers—now married with children—are crying out for a better way, where fathers take the lead in discipling their children through family worship. In this 2-part podcast, Scott Brown and Jason Dohm interact with clips from the brothers’ past discussion, recorded when they were in their 20s with 3 kids each.  

In Part 1, the Wood brothers explain that fathers have a mandate from Scripture to train their children, but it should be pursued with a deep-seated joy and fervor for God. Though it is Christ alone who brings salvation, dads should seek to instill a hunger for Him in their children—and not reduce their training to game-like “Bible drills.” The aim should not be to teach them to be good “moralists,” but to genuinely know God and be profoundly changed by who He is. Time is fleeting, they stress, so seize this precious season with your kids! 

Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Church and Family Life exists to proclaim the sufficiency of scripture. And of course, I have Jason Dull. Jason, we get to talk about something that's pretty neat we've seen happen in a lot of people's lives. I'm looking forward to these two podcasts.

So I am so delighted to talk about this, Jason, because we're seeing a trend that's so encouraging. And it's a trend that really began a long time ago. We saw how powerful it was when fathers and mothers started reading the Bible to their children and their families, how transformational it was. It shook the world. And now a lot of the kids that grew up in our churches, grew up coming to our conferences all over the country, what we're seeing is that they are actually replicating a culture, a family worship in their families.

I couldn't be more encouraged than to see that. And I'm seeing it in our own church. I'm seeing it in your church and all kinds of churches around. So we're going to hear from Chandler and Cameron Wood. They've got young families, late 20s, you know, three kids each ish, you know, that type of thing when they had this conversation and so let's listen to the first clip I think we are an example of you know what it means kind of that you can't save your children you know because we obviously were not saved by the efforts of our parents right we are we are clear picture of the fact that the Lord just had a hold on us and He carried us to where we are now apart from having some over the top biblical structure of a family when we were younger, but that's not what we have.

Yeah, you can have, and there are examples of both sides of the fence, and you see those who grow up in completely anti-God homes, and I wouldn't say we grew up in anti-God homes, but who are saved, you know, who come out of that and love the Lord and that's clearly a grace of God. The same way that there are people who grow who who grow their Christian life through these camps of Christianity that aren't really Christian and Here preachings are here sermons and worship and stuff that's really not biblical and then they that God has people in those camps too and he saves them it really is all the work of the Lord I mean his election is made sure more so through those type of examples absolutely and that's not to say I mean if you are raising children your desire should be that you raise them in the Lord but with the understanding that you solely cannot save your children it's only a gift and a grace of the Lord if your children are saved. Right and I feel though in our culture too, well from what we've seen, we've kind of had an experience in this.

We've lived through that. Too many times, at least growing up, we grew up in the boom of youth culture. So taking your kids to church, being part of youth, youth camps and stuff like that, we lived in the heyday of that. And we're, we've seen so many people fall away from the church And they were there just as much as we were and so that's proof two of that that would that to say that I Think that whole kind of experiment with hey, let's let the church raise our children doesn't work either We have a mandate by God and that mandate is a better mandate because it comes from his word that We as parents are supposed to be the ones instructing instructing our kids There we are as as fathers. We are the pastors of Our home.

They are the leaders of our home with a heart with a heart that actually loves the Lord because I was thinking about this the other day and Reg and I were talking about it and just thinking about raising our children now. But there's such a way that you can raise your kids where you want them to do the right thing and all the biblical knowledge and all this stuff that we played before them that they would be able to regurgitate it and memorize it and stuff. And then I thought, you know, well, if we solely just do that because we think that that's going to be a key to their salvation, you know, but our hearts are not even really there. There's a problem. And so something that I've been thinking about is just it's really examining of myself.

Is like. Do I have that joy inside me? Am I joyous in Christ that I actually want to teach my kids because of that joy that I have? I think it's important for our children to see our excitement when we open the scriptures and our excitement in worship of the Lord and not that oh this is just a routine thing that we do every day and that it's actually from genuine because when it's from genuine this and it's like that that is your joy that is your life then your children see that and say, I want that. I want that.

I want that joy. I want that joy that they have. But a lot of times, and I'm guilty of this too, is just kind of doing it more out of a routine thing and thinking, oh this is the right way that we should do this or that. So it's been examining in myself to say, is that really where I bank my life? Is Christ really my ultimate joy?

Yeah. Scott, what I love about that clip is they're making so very clear what we're not saying. We're not saying that family discipleship, family worship is in place of the sovereignty of God and salvation. Right. That somehow we're in a purely stimulus response world where family worship is the stimulus and then always the response is the salvation of our children.

We don't believe the Bible teaches that. I hope no one's ever understood us as teaching that. What we do believe is that faith comes by hearing. So God has given parents a duty to bring the Word of God to their children and to model the worship of God for their children, knowing that God normally uses the means that he's established to bring salvation to the elect. Yeah, another way to say that, God blesses his ways.

When parents are faithful, the inflection point of those kids is gonna be to trust the Lord. Like you said, not always, but God does bless his ways and that's why you have promises of God for those who are faithful in it. The other thing I really liked about it is, when they were talking about, well it's kind of, you have to love it yourself, that part. My mind just went right back to Deuteronomy six, where Moses says, these things shall be in your heart and you shall teach them diligently. It begins with the love, you know, you love him, you keep his commandments, they're in your heart and you want to talk about it.

That's why I really like that about that first clip. Yeah Scott, in the next clip Cameron and Chandler are talking about how biblical knowledge isn't something to instill pride in. That isn't the objective. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. So as we're loving our children, giving them the Word of God, we want them to understand our objective is not to make them Christian academics.

Our objective is that they would be what we've become, which is followers of Jesus Christ. This is about making disciples, not making people smart about the Bible. Let's listen to the clip. Yeah. I can see myself now with how kind of competitive I am and just nature that I can see some of like that same intensity that a father may have on a child to compete well in sports I can kind of see that same intensity from myself And how well I just want my children to know everything there is about the Bible.

Yeah in it in it almost and that within itself may not be bad, but it's just the thought that I almost want them to know it so that they just Outdo every other kid in that way, you know, and I have to kind of recenter myself on that is like look You know, yeah, I want them to know all these things I want them to do it but first and foremost none of this knowledge just like we know is not it's gonna matter if they aren't in love with the Lord. Yeah, it's kind of the mentality of just like, just like, well, you finished what I was saying, just like we could play sports our whole life. But if we don't love that, we're never going to strive to be excellent at it on our own, on our own. We're just going to do it because someone else is pushing us yeah well it's like Bible drill yeah you know growing up we had this thing called Bible drill which I'm sure a lot of our listeners are familiar with that but it's kind of a competitive it's kind of a replacement for sports in a sense within the church, but it's kind of a competitive thing.

No, upward is a replacement for sports in the church. Oh, that's true. Yeah, upward. But this, but Bible drill could be really competitive. I mean, people get crazy.

I've seen some competitions where people were got really intense and crying over losing Bible drill well basically you recite verses You learn the books of the Bible you can name all it's just basically your knowledge of a lot that's in the Bible. And which is... It's essentially turning the Bible into sport. That's what it is. Right.

So that's an example because That can be a good thing. Mm-hmm. You know doing the Bible drill can be a really good thing because it can help you Learn, you know scriptures and that's something that you think Oh that would be really good for our kids, right? And so I'm not knocking Bible drill in a sense, but it it's similar and what you're you're saying because something that can be really good can turn into something that loses the point. Right.

Well, I mean, we're making the idol the knowledge Just because you know, just because you can recite a hundred scriptures and you know each book of the Bible doesn't mean that you know any more about God. Well, it's your motive. Your motive really plays into the heart of it. Where is your heart? That's something I've kind of been thinking about like I was talking about with raising my kids is different in a sense.

I'm not just pushing my kids or putting this stuff in front of my kids as a formula of like, well, they do this and they do this, they do this, then they're going to inevitably know and learn and be good at Christianity. That's why I'm saying if my heart's not in it, if I don't, if I don't look at to my kids and want to, expound on the, the work, the wonders of God in front of my children, because I desperately want them to know the Lord. Then I have to question where are my motives? Is it because I want them to, is it because I want them to be a Christian and be moralistic versus actually being a lover of the Lord and to know God for who he is and be extremely changed by that. Right.

You know what I really liked about that piece of the conversation? It really connected with me because you know when we had children in our home I had one single objective as we read the Bible together. I wanted them to see how good God was, how great God was, how sovereign, how loving. I just wanted them to have a sense of God and his superiority over all the other gods. And that's kind of what they're saying.

And I just really appreciated that focus. You've got to have the right focus. It's not intellectual capability, although we should learn things. I think they acknowledge that, but I thought the Bible drill thing was pretty funny. There's this gulf between knowing about God and knowing God.

So many people know a lot about God. They've been Bible students, but until you repent and believe the gospel, you don't experientially know God. And so we definitely want to impart to our children that there is this distinction so that they recognize that just learning facts about God is not the same as knowing God. God is to be known. Yeah.

So in this next clip these guys discuss the difficulty in thinking through how to protect your children. We know for sure we should protect our children, but that can look in different situations with different kids. But anyway, so let's listen and comment. You know, I'm not the type to, I don't wanna be just this incredibly overprotective parent, but I do want to protect them from the evils that I'm right Yeah, well we and we have a right parents to protect our children. It's when we overstep or that the goal isn't sheltering our kids because we are afraid of everything because then that means we're not trusting the Lord the goal is to shelter our kids in such a way that we are sheltering them from what we know is evil yeah not in something that we've actually gone through and experience.

Right, right. But I think on the one side of the foot, you know, there are, it can be a lot more, it can be easier specifically for those people who have been on the other side of the fence, who've lived that life and then now have children and are saved to over shelter their kids because in it in it in in their heart it's a good motive. They're wanting to protect their kids but they don't realize that they're actually taking control of their entire life. I think that is what I was kind of talking about earlier. It's like the over protecting in a sense is like, okay, I'm gonna guard my children from all these things that I know are bad and not godly, which is good.

But doing it in such a way that thinking that doing that is going to guarantee their salvation. Right now, that is wrong. Right. That is a wrong way of viewing it because, because you can, you can guard your children from all these things and be you know overprotective of them in every area of their life and And your children could still come out. Yeah, and you set them free and you haven't, because sometimes sheltering comes with completely just abandoning any any idea of culture, which can be bad because as long as you're teaching your kids about culture through the lens of the Bible, then you can still teach them, hey, the world is like this.

You can even show them experiences of the world is like this so that they are aware of that. Because if you don't and you just lock them away for 16 years and You throw them out in the real world. What's gonna happen? Yeah, they're gonna run for the heels. Yeah, I think It's our duty to teach our children through the work through biblical worldview and to do it Well to do it biblically, of course, but also to do it where we aren't taking control of everything in our lives.

Yeah I think it's it's we need discernment. We have to submit ourselves to God too. We need discernment As to what we shelter our kids from, you know, and what ages that we shelter our kids from certain things and particular things, we need wisdom. And that can only come from God. And I think we need to cry out to the Lord for that wisdom in our parenting because that is a struggle and I think what I would say to parents now and in my position I'm a young parent you know obviously there's people that are way wiser than me but something just from my lens from our upbringing and just kind of what I see is like, if you're a Christian and you love the Lord and you want to instruct your children in the Lord, trust in the Lord.

The weight is not on us. We can place that weight on Christ Christ bears that weight for us in a sense is we're not responsible for our kids salvation But if we trust the Lord and we are Christians and we're looking to Christ, do your best. Do your best to present the gospel to your children daily and it be a sincere heart. You know, examine yourself if that's a sincere heart Do your best to to present these things to your children? And trust the Lord.

Mm-hmm. The way is not on your shoulder Don't overthink every everything but do your best and yeah, and then there's obviously things and just and let the Lord take care of the rest. Right. And me saying that it's not like I think it's important. I think it's important that you should daily have Bible time with, you know, put these things in front of your children, but don't put your hope in the fact that you did those things that that's gonna have a particular outcome.

Right. You trust the Lord, you pray to the Lord for your kids salvation and you do your best. And really that's all that I can say. I mean, but the, the, the, the reason you do it is if God saves them, then they have this knowledge. They're in a lot better position than I was when I got saved because they actually know things about who God is.

Scott, I think there are two things to say here in commenting on their commenting. The first, I think they acknowledge this, exposure can be defiling, so we have to be really careful with our children that we don't expose them in ways that defiles them and desensitize them to things. We actually want our consciences to be sensitive to. But the other part of this, which they're also speaking to, is there is a condition of being naive that actually makes you vulnerable also. So we have to be careful in wanting them not to be defiled by the things that they're exposed to, placing them in this condition of being so naive that it actually makes them vulnerable.

Yeah and I was thinking while they were talking about how important it is to grow affections, everything that you do grows affections in your family. And so you wanna grow those affections for the things that are beautiful and good. You wanna provide a little piece of heaven so that they see the goodness and the beauty of the things of God. You know, they mentioned a biblical worldview. I thought that was really helpful too.

What we did in our family was to try to read through the Bible year after year to give a sense of the sweep of the Word of God. The good thing about that is that you run into every possible sin, you know, except this radical transgenderism that we have today. I don't know if you quite see that in the Bible, but you see almost everything else. So your kids are actually exposed to the beautiful and the ugly in the Bible. The Bible is very honest.

It always speaks rightly. It always uses the right language to speak about defiling things. Carefully, judiciously. Yeah. And the funny thing about that is children, it goes right over their head until it's time for them to get it, you know?

So yeah, I thought this was a very difficult subject about protection and growing affections and being discerning. You could kind of sense their trepidation, you know, in that. And I understand that. Absolutely. Okay, so there you go.

Two young guys trying to figure it out. What a blessing. It's thrilling to me when young families really are trying to be thoughtful and biblical about raising their families. Okay, so we're going to do a part two on this. We're going to keep talking about they're trying to figure out the nuts and bolts of what this looks like.

So hey, hope you can join us in part two of young families trying to figure out how to inject the goodness of God in their families to do family worship and trust God all along the way. See you next time. Thanks for listening to the Church and Family Life podcast. We have thousands of resources on our website, announcements of conferences coming up. Hope you can join us.

Go to churchandfamilylife.com. See you next Monday for our next broadcast of the Church and Family Life podcast.