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 2, the Wood brothers explain how that dads must show patience in carrying out the biblical mandate to train their children, especially when they’re young. Through personal trial and error, Cameron and Chandler relate how they simplified their family worship time, noting that a father’s heart for his child should not be focused on the world’s notion of success, but on their eternal soul. They also emphasize that dads must strive to faithfully live out the message before their children and not be hypocrites. 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. Here today we're going to continue a conversation with two young men about how they're trying to figure out family worship. Two young guys, late 20s, early 30s, six kids between them during this season in their life. And they really are, it's a conversation about, between two brothers actually, Cameron and Chandler Wood, about trying to establish helpful, healthy, biblical patterns in their family life.

So Jason, here's what's so exciting to me about a conversation like this. When a family gets on this early, it's really, really good. It sweetens that family, it steadies those children, it actually, it grows their intellectual capability, It brings the family together, you know, even when a child messes up and needs to be disciplined in the middle of family worship. Didn't you hate that? That never happens.

That never happens. So discombobulating. Except for when it does. Except for when it does. So anyway, we're going to listen to these two guys again and continue the discussion.

So let's go. So we have a clip here where Cameron and Chandler give us a real-life example of gathering family around the Bible for worship. And here they sort of explain how critical it is that, especially when you have really young children, that you not overthink it, that you just rely on the simple practice. Let's listen. Yeah.

I guess for our listeners, I guess we could tell each other, tell the listeners kind of what we do for our Bible time each day or whatever. How does your family worship look? And obviously, these, this is not a, us talking about this or telling this is not a rule book of like, Oh, you need, this is the right thing to do. There are times when we miss family worship. I think, I think it can be helpful to listeners though, that might not have a routine family worship time or whatever.

So, well, first and foremost, I'll lay the grain with the groundwork like this. If you are a Christian parent, there is absolutely no excuse for not teaching your kids about God and his word. You have no excuse. I mean, you're Christian, so therefore you say your life is in Christ and you're not teaching them anything about it. That doesn't work.

You got to. So there's no black and white area there. I mean, there's no gray area there. It's black and white. You know, we are instructed by God to teach our children about him.

Plus, if we're Christians, our greatest desire should be in doing that. We should want to, you know, that should be a want of our heart. We have a changed heart in Christ, so we should want that. But that doesn't mean you're gonna be perfect at it. You're gonna just be the greatest Bible teacher there ever was.

There are days that I struggle with that, because I have to constantly turn to the Lord and knowing that there are days when I'm reading the word to my children and I'm trying my best to explain it, that I leave, some days I leave like, yeah, that made sense. I feel good about that. And there's some times I walk away from worship and I'm like, man, did this accomplish anything? It's just like that. You know, life is like that.

You are still a wicked person in flesh and your sin and you're not perfect, you're going to fail. But that's where the grace of God comes into play. You're trusting in God, that no matter what you're teaching, he's going to plant you're planting that seed that he is going to fertilize, he's going to grow your children. But without say kind of how we do it is we all give the ages of your okay, yeah, so my kids are still be seven in a couple weeks, I'll just say seven, five, and my youngest will be three in June, so three. So seven, five, and three.

And we've, thankfully, we've, by the grace of God, have had, since we've been married, intentional, we've been intentional about family worship. Now we haven't always succeeded at it in keeping with a routine. There are months that are better than other months. There are weeks that are better than other weeks. But we, both Casey and I, who's my wife, we care about being intentional about instructing our kids.

Now this isn't just in family worship. We do other things too throughout the week or even through their study, their homeschooled. So even in their instruction, they're getting biblical knowledge, but in our family worship time, we, we do it usually after dinner each, uh, each day. And it usually involves, because they're children, it usually involves a devotional centered on a biblical passage. And what I usually do is I will read that passage of scripture.

We'll discuss that passage of scripture. And then I will read like this devotional following that, um, passage of scripture money back up there. We usually open with some worship too. Now in your case, Chandler, you could probably play guitar, but it's a lot harder for me to lead from piano and teach my kids. So we'll pull something up on YouTube.

That's the great thing with technology. Oh yeah. But you can pull up, there's all kind of live lit with lyrics. And so we'll pull up a couple of songs and usually my kids want more. So that's good.

We'll usually do a couple of those opening that, um, we'll pray. It's like kind of having a mini church service for us, you know, and then we'll do that kind of looking at the word. I'll teach that to my kids. Um, Every now and then we'll do catechisms. I was doing catechisms every time, but with all three of them, this is different.

If you have one child who understands, it's a lot easier, I think, because you're just working with them solely. But we still do that routinely. But I could, I kind of saw myself doing that where I was like, I want to teach them, they got to know these catechisms, they got to know. But then I saw like after Estella was like five, and she learned like 36 of them. Well, the very next year after we had stopped for like a month or two months, she forgot them all.

So for me, I didn't just want to teach some catechisms just so they knew the catechisms. I wanted them to know what that meant, like where in the Bible does that come from? So we've taken a more intentional approach about spending more time on those theological points. It's like, who is God and why did God make you, instead of just saying, instead of them saying the answer of that catechism, understanding where that answer comes from is more important to me than them just knowing the answer. So without say that we'll do those every now and then.

So usually it's worship followed by some prayer then devotional. I mean then the devotional with the passage of scripture looking at that together. Lately since my kids have gotten a little older, I give them a time to respond. So I usually ask, do you have any questions about what we talked about? You know, trying to hear.

And that's joyous because you never know what you're gonna get. You hope that they've understood something, they ask about it. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Don't let that be a marker for how well you succeeded because they're children. You know?

And, uh, and then we'll close in prayer. And then we've been, we've started this thing where we will close out our entire family worship time with we all sing the doxology together. That's good. So we all sing it together. Yeah.

And even Cassie and my youngest took to that. And so it's just fun to hear them sing. But that's it. But with that being said, It's usually about my type of personality that I have earlier on when I was trying to learn the ropes. I would go way too long because I just thought that I just had so much I wanted to pack in because I don't want them to miss a lot of things.

And so, but then Casey kind of brought me back to center with that and looked, said, you know, they're, they're younger. They're not going to be able to grasp all these things that, you know, so I've had to learn how to just through practice shaping the way I talk to my kids, the way I teach my kids, and what my expectations should be for my kids. I really like, Jason, the simplicity that they're advocating. Just simple things. A father doesn't need to give long sermons, shouldn't give long sermons.

What I thought we should do when we were doing this with our kids, I wanted them to understand words, simple words in the Bible. But I just like the simplicity of what these guys are talking about. Darrell Bock Yeah, three quick points from me. One on length. I really appreciated about what was said there.

In the dome family, historically, it's been 10 to 30 minutes. 10 is on the very lowest side. It's almost always longer than that. Thirty minutes is on the very high side. It's usually a little bit shorter than 30 minutes.

I don't have chapter and verse for that. It's just been our practice. Secondly, your children learning to read. Our practice has been read a verse and then you go around reading verses until you're out of verses. One unintended consequence of that is the children who can't read are irritated by not having a slot in the reading around.

It's actually – I'm very convinced that it's accelerated the learning to read curve for a number of my children simply because they wanted a turn when we were at a round. And then finally, another thing that's happening when you have Bible time or family worship is you're training for Sunday, especially if you're in a church that meets all together. Those are much longer than 10 to 30 minutes, but you're giving them an opportunity to practice sitting, mostly still, mostly quiet, being attentive. It's making you ready for Sunday. Yeah, the thing you're talking about, learning to read, we experience that too.

What we did when we had, well, when Claudia, she was always our littlest, right? We would have her read, well, just maybe repeat four or five words, and that would be her reading or whoever was too young to actually read. But yeah, that's really good stuff. So in the next clip, these guys discuss the fruits of instruction, how encouraging it is to see that actually come out in what they say and what they do. So let's listen, because there's fruit to be reaped.

You know, this is not an area of puffing her up or you up, you know, but I think it's, I think it's cool to see and worth noting, but it's, it's, it's, it's really interesting to see, you know, as you're faithful over time. And you might not see it, but it might come out from someone hearing it or whatever. But Estella told my wife, I can't remember where they're at, but was saying something like, before we watch a movie, I always pray for my brother, which is Atticus, that he will not love that movie more than you. And that's just crazy to hear from a kid. Yeah.

You know, it's like, wow, that's really like, where did that, how did that come about? You know, and it's from hearing truth and from, but just seeing that you could love worldly things more than God and just that you know a seven-year-old could kind of grasp that and pray that. Oh yeah. That says a lot. Yeah she continues to get older.

She convicts me about things. The things that I am, that I, you know, we are, what we're teaching our kids, we have to be physical examples of too. And for a while when they're younger, you don't put those two pieces together because you're like, well, I can teach them these things, but then there's more, you feel more liberty in yourself to kind of slack off, but now that she's more aware than ever of everything, it's convicting because you're like, well, yeah, she's right. And I've said these things, but I'm not really living that out of the example in my life. So that's the convicting thing.

It's so much easier for a child to actually believe in those truths than for us adults to live them out. That was very convicting. Which is, which should say a lot for us as parents, especially Christian parents. Because Estella, boom, she's seven. I mean, it feels like, people say that, but sometimes I wake up and I'm like, man, my marriage is, we're going on eight years and if and it feels longer than eight years but then there's other times when I look at Estelle I'm like it doesn't even feel like she's been around for seven years yeah and as Christian parents you really do have this small amount of time with your kids.

And you have this small amount of time to teach them the greatest truth that ever was. And yeah, you don't have it's not all on you, the Lord is going to do that work. But Man, there's so much in the world that your kids are going to eventually see. They're going to eventually come across. Why would we spend our time wasting that, those precious moments with our children, on worthless things?

Why would we do that? And I would say too and that's one of the that's one of the graces of homeschooling Not that that's the absolute, you know right thing but I think it's I think It's a great thing because if academics, math, science, English, or the typical norm, If those are more important to us than spiritual things and our kids knowing spiritual things as a Christian, that's a problem. There's nothing more important in this life than Christ, if we're a Christian, and preparing our children for the life, like Cameron said, that's gonna be coming their way with all the sin that the world offers and all the evil that comes to steal, why would we not, and I'm not saying that those other things are not important, those are important, but I'm saying is if we don't have the mindset that spiritual nourishment is even more important than those things, then we need to check our heart. Jason, I just couldn't get out of my mind listening. What a tragedy it was in the parents of my generation.

The parents of my generation, They didn't, there was almost nothing like this was happening. I know there was small pockets, but parents in my generation actually believed it was wrong to push your religion on them, on your children. And that they would, it would just sort of flower up in time. But these guys are doing a totally, talking about a totally different thing where they're actually seeing fruit, even immediate fruit from it. But I just, my heart was just broken in a way listening to that because of what had happened in the previous generations.

Scott, everyone is familiar with the concept of return on investment. How much profit can you expect from the investments that you make? And after having engaged in this practice for 27 years or something like that now, I can say there's nothing in my life that has produced more profit on what the investment that was required than in this category. We just want to beg young mothers and fathers to make this investment. What's required is so small compared to the profit that comes from it.

In this final clip, Cameron and Chandler talk about what success looks like. If you define success the right way, you're on a good track. If you define it the wrong way, it's really problematic, so let's listen to them. See, not only do we have the sins of this life in in more blatant, you know Terms of lust and of the pride and all the things that we know as Christians to be sinful we also have This other thing Which is is is also sinful, but it's a distraction from our purpose. So we're battling two things.

And this other thing is normalcy. It's a distraction of living, gaining, building wealth, building success here, having... And it's a trap that so many nominal Christians fall into, and that we see in churches across our nation daily. And that's what Cameron and I, we, you know, we want to be honest. We want to, you know, we're not, we're not trying to be, um, mean by any means, but we'd want to be honest because maybe there are some listeners that fall into that.

Wake up, Wake up to the reality that this life is fleeting. It comes and it goes, and what are we doing for the glory of the Lord? What are we doing with what we have? Are we storing up wealth? We storing up all this stuff?

Are we we're trying to put our kids in the right thing so that they would be successful in this life you have such great responsibility as a parent a Christian parent with kids you have such a great responsibility you have this opportunity in its in it's a wonderful joyous responsibility You have this opportunity to raise your kids up in the instruction of the Lord with the hope and the prayer that God would save them and You're giving them these tools these resources that are eternal resources that will last far more than anything else you can be given them. And this is not something that we just say because we have it all together. We struggle with this, too, we struggle with these areas, too. It's just a self examining thing. When you look at your life, in live scripture, you see how weak we are, and how susceptible we are to falling into the distractions of this life, the schemes of the devil.

I do want to ask this question because I think this is a, it's a good examining question, but if you feel like, okay, and this is just, you know, for Christian parents looking at their children, if your kids grow up and they're wildly successful in some area of business, and they make six figures a year. They grow to make six figures a year, but they don't know the Lord, and they could care less about God does that bother you would that bother you that's a convicting question because I feel like there's a lot of people that they might say because they're Christian they might say oh yeah that would bother me but does it really bother you Because do you care more about the comfort and the wealth of your children than you do their eternal souls? Yeah, for sure. Let us fight for truth. Let us be bold and let us be parents, if we are parents, to instruct our children in what's true.

Yeah. Not in the thing. Let's not waste our time on things that are fading away and understand this. Every good parent wants what's best for their kids. And it's not it is not an evil desire for you want to want good things for your children That's not an evil desire What is evil though?

What is sinful is wanting your children to aspire to become something? That is other than what what they are called to be in scripture. If that's your marker, then you're missing the mark. And we have to always re-examine ourselves. As Christians, we have to re-examine ourselves as individual Christians, as Christian parents, every day.

We have to do this to see what we're doing in our lives if our life is lining up with what God has said in accordance with his word. And just one last thing I'll say, this is just an example, just to give you, because we want to be honest and give you kind of real life application here. My oldest is seven. And if I were to tell you that she doesn't know how to ride a bike yet, would you be surprised by that? Because I walk around our neighborhood sometimes and I see a five-year-old riding bikes.

And somehow in my flesh, I get into this point where I feel like she's got to know how to ride a bike, because that's what every kid knows how to do at five. You know? Not saying she can't learn how to ride a bike, but she didn't care about it. And so I'm not really going to teach her if she doesn't care to want to know how to ride a bike But my attitude towards that her riding a bike is a shameful attitude Because I want her to do these things so that when she rides on the neighborhood They people can say well look her parents taught her how to do these things rather than who cares. If she lives her whole life, she doesn't know how to ride a bike, but she knows the Lord.

That's great. What a glorious, joyous thing that God has blessed me with, a child who loves the Lord. May that be what we desire. May that be our greatest joy. These physical markers that we grew up with, we're so, it's like we're wired to believe that these are markers of your good parenting.

That's the thing that if Estella knows how to ride a bike, that puts a mark on my list that I've been a good parent. It's just so stupid. It is so stupid that I would even feel down about that. Now, that might seem silly to some, But it's just an example to show, you know, there are these kind of markers we put in our lives as parents that we're taught to believe from our childhoods that this is what makes a good parent. And none of it has to do with God.

None of it has to do with his instruction. And it's a waste because Estella can grow up and be the, let's say if she did ride a bike and she became, and she, she, she rode the tour to France or whatever, 500 times and she didn't know God, she would still die. And she would still go to hell. So just just just just we need to recenter ourselves as parents, and let this be an encouragement to you that we're young parents, we're still learning. By the grace of God, We will have arrows in our quiver that we can aim at this world for the glory of Him.

It's just very sobering to think that we're making daily decisions that will result in things 10 years, 20 years, 30 years down the road in the lives of our children. And we don't approach our days that way. Let me quote the sage, it's so stupid not to do it. Yeah, hey I praise the Lord for young families who are trying to figure it out, who really want to saturate their homes with the Word of God. It's so exciting to me to hear that.

I'm praying for a whole new generation that'll rise up, all these kids. Hey, maybe Jason who grew up with us, that they'll get on it, they'll get on it early, just like these guys are trying to figure it out. Amen. Amen. Hey, Thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast.

Hope to see you next time. Pray for the next generation to rise up and fill their houses with the glory of God. 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