“Family-integrated churches are a great blessing!  Not only do we see a biblical pattern for family-integrated churches, but in today’s cultural, a family-integrated church is refreshing.  Now although we may not miss the numerous programs, the superficial busyness, and the traditions of man seen in many mainstream churches, a FIC is still not without its own potential struggles.  In fact, this one lurking danger seems to be a strategic weapon of the enemy for those attending a FIC.  This threat is often hard to notice, but it’s found in our churches and it’s dangerous and unbiblical.  This session will reveal this subtle danger and how we as families can avoid it.”

There are some things that I have seen within not only my own family integrated church or family integrated church that I've been a part of and know of, and families that are part of family integrated churches, I've seen some things that have broken my heart and I trust that maybe you've seen them too. Today I want to address those dangers. I titled it lurking because they don't seem to be quite at the forefront. They're a little under the surface. You really don't notice them at first, but it's kinda like cancer.

When you start to experience the pain, the cancer has probably already been there for a while. And that's often how the enemy works, because if he can, if the devil can get church leadership and families to think that he's not even on the radar within their churches, then they're in a very dangerous area. And I think a lot of times some of our families and family integrated churches are at that point. So what are some of these lurking dangers that I have not only experienced but also seen along the way? And let me preface this by saying I realize that some of you may not like some of the things that are said in here.

And I'm okay with that, but something that is often true in my own life, when someone speaks something to me, or not maybe even directly to me but when I hear a teaching and in some way I'm kind of bothered by what it says it usually means there's an area in my life there's a reason I'm bothered. So if you if there's something I say and you're a little offended by it, perhaps just maybe there's a little truth in it in your life and that's why the reaction. So I just pray that as I share And I share humbly because I am still learning. I have not mastered all these. I am not the expert here.

I am just passing on information that I have seen as the Lord leads me in my family and in my church family and things that I've seen even indirectly through other families. And so let's look at what some of these dangers are so that we can be on guard in our in our lives. And did it just come on? Wow, I quit yelling now. All right, what are these dangers within the first one?

And this has already been touched on just a little bit here this week, is the idolatry of family. Now what I'm gonna do when each danger, I kinda wrap up each danger, I'm gonna give you an application because what I don't want you to do is go, okay those are dangers now what do we do? And when I preach on Sundays I always want to have the the Monday morning response. Great sermon but how does what I just heard change Monday? And so I'm wanting to hopefully guide us in a way that when you hear these dangers you can look back and go, oh so this is what I can start doing on Monday or today.

The first one is the idolatry of family. Like I said, we've heard it mentioned already, it's been touched on in this conference. Because in a family integrated church it is not about your family. Should fathers lead families? Yes, we will preach that forever.

We need exhortations in Scripture that remind us to be godly fathers and to lead godly families. However, if the family is the focus of your church and the focus of your Christianity, then you are not going to a biblically sound church and it's not Christianity that you're practicing. The Christian life is not all about your family. I met with a, last week I met with a children's pastor in another town a couple hours away and he was in a typical program driven church. They had the Christian school, they did all the programs that are attached, they did everything and he was the children's pastor and he had seen the divided video and had several questions.

And he emailed me about three or four and said he'd have more later. I was like, listen, you're going to have a lot more later. I said, let's just meet face to face. I've been down this road. I'm going to wear myself out typing.

Let's just talk. So we met and here was one of his questions. So, is every sermon you preach about the family? Well, my answer and the answers you should hear from any pastor or elder in a family of great churches is no. Don't mistake the fact that just because I'm preaching to an entire family that this message is going to be about your family particularly.

And that's the dangers that we have to guard against especially in family-grated churches is raising our families to a place that they are almost exalted and the body of Christ is to be focused on loving and honoring and praising and glorifying and serving and worshiping Christ and loving all others it's not about your family it's not about you that's not Christianity that's family idolatry and now you've broken the second commandment so we got other issues to talk about Matthew 22 what is the great commandment the great commandment that shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind. The greatest commandment does not change once you decide to homeschool and go to family-greated church. The greatest commandment is to not love your family. The greatest commandment is to not lead your family or attend a family-greated church. And some of you may be bothered by just hearing that because you think that's not me but it is.

I've seen it. So you're saying I should leave my family. No that is not what Scripture says. That's not what I'm saying. But the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart soul mind strength.

You should attend the family integrated church. That's what you're going to hear. Find a church that practices biblical models of church life. But it's still not about your family. Quoting Jesus, He said, God should be your first love.

Period. And to love Him with all your heart, soul, and mind. Your family is not the theme of Christianity. It is Christ and his gospel. And yes, in pursuing Christ and the gospel and loving him and obeying him, we lead as fathers our families.

But don't ever let your family become the focus of your Christianity because it's not Christianity that you have, it's family idolatry. So how do you apply that? I want to give you one little way because some of you are seasoned veterans in family-integrated churches. But let me give you one little way. In church leadership this year This may be something you want to at some point communicate to your church family to help them to avoid that family idolatry trap that even those who are not in family integrated churches think exist within the family integrated church.

I do not like labels. I do not like being labeled. But it's kind of the nature of humanity. In some ways it helps identifying groups and belief systems and many other things. But when someone comes up And usually it's going to be someone who's in your family, here's that you're attending a family integrated church and another believer.

And they ask, so what kind of church is this? Let me offer this suggestion. Don't tell them that, oh, we're a family integrated church. Now I've done that. I'm talking from experience here.

I've done that, I've said that. But let me tell you what that does. First of all, if they're a believer, they already feel out of the loop. What are you talking about? They don't know this label of Family-Integrated church.

It's not very new in a sense of being called that. They know other labels, purpose-driven church and oh I go to a seeker sensitive church or I go to a mega church and you can throw in all kinds of other labels but many people have not heard a lot of times of family integrated church. So when you say that, they're probably wondering, is this some kind of new church? Or, and you've heard this, or at least you've heard people talk about it, is this some kind of cult? You know, the kind of cult where you you have to have a 15 passenger van and your daughters have to bake bread and boys who carry knives, you know, that kind of cult.

You laugh but that's about half of you in here. So if you're talking to someone who's a believer and instead giving them a label they don't know anything of that automatically just because they don't know about it builds a little wall I just suggest that you respond by saying, oh well I just go to a Christ exalting Bible believing sufficiency of Scripture kind of practicing church. And you should be right? That's what your church should be. Every family-integrated church should be that kind of church.

Christ exalting, Bible believing, sufficiency of Scripture, practicing kind of church. Now unfortunately many mainstream believers still aren't going to know what that is. You may need some explanation with that. But follow me here on this because the next question is, oh, so you go to church like that. And if they're a parent, they'll say, so what kind of programs do you have for my kids?

That's usually the second question that follows, you know, youth groups, church, children's church, stuff like that. Now this is where you're going to have to keep this family idolatry in check because you just got to tell them humbly and this is a key here when because none of us have arrived. We can still learn things from other people who do not go to family-grated churches. But if you humbly just let them know that in your pursuit of the Scriptures and even refer to the leadership, the church's leadership pursuit of the Scriptures, We did not see a command, not even a hint of a pattern for having something like a youth group or children's church that divided up the family. We did not see that.

In fact, we saw the opposite, the family staying together. I think you just give them a copy of Divided and... But what that does, let me show you what that does. First of all, if it's a single person, either unmarried, maybe it's grandparents that all the kids are grown, and you say family integrated, they are thinking, well, my family's grown or I don't have a family. So, they automatically feel I can't come here.

That builds a wall there because they don't see themselves as the normal mother, father and all the kids. And that label of family integrated may be okay in this circle while we're here at conferences like this, but it becomes a barrier to many of those because they don't feel they fit in because they don't have what they think is a normal family. Their husband has left them or the kids are grown or they've never been married. But if they're a believer and in the body of Christ regardless of their family dynamics they are your brother and sister in Christ. And we can't forget that or overlook that.

It's not a... That person is not an outcast because they don't have a a bunch of children or because all their children are grown or because their husband has left them, they're not an outcast, they are brother and sister in Christ. But when you say family integrated, sometimes that builds a wall immediately. Something else that kind of response does, when you say, well, we're just a Bible-believing Christ-honoring, sufficiency of Scripture, practicing church, We don't see a hint of that in the scriptures, so we just have the family worship together. When you say something like that, in your pursuit of the scriptures and in your church leadership's pursuit of the scriptures, what that does, it puts the burden back on the scriptures.

The battle now of understanding that is not between you and the person you're talking with but between that person and what saith the Scriptures. I don't mean to hurt your feelings but some of us come across as weird to other people. I know it's hard to believe but it's true. But it's much easier for someone, another believer, just to ignore the weird guy they're talking to who goes to a family-integrated church and that label, than it is for them to be challenged to go back and search the Scriptures themselves to see what is the practice of the local church. That should be our goal to direct our brothers and sisters back to the Scriptures, not to try to get them to buy into a name they've never heard of like family-graded church.

Because if there's going to be a battle, and there will be, let it not be between you and them. Let it be between their traditions and the teaching of the Scriptures. Let the battle be there. Our goal is not to win an argument, but to exhort a brother or sister into believing that the scriptures are sufficient in all aspects of their life even where they attend church and just practicing that one little response will be a constant reminder in our own minds that it's about Christ and his gospel. It's about the sufficiency of scripture.

It's not about our families. And if we're not guarded in our homes and within our family integrated churches, that family idolatry will creep back in. The second danger, we tend to blindly follow others who are like-minded. We tend to sometimes gravitate towards taking everything that someone says, endorses or promotes as being scriptural or profitable for our churches or family, especially if they are in our like-minded camps. Now don't think that I'm trying to make a jab at a ministry here or a leader.

I'm not. If I had a problem with them, I'd be talking to them, not to you, but I'm talking to you. The problem is with us, who will follow leaders that are like-minded and will do so blindly. We arrive at a dangerous place when we assume that everything that comes out of a like-minded leader's mouth is good enough for us. Now it's easy for you to reject certain false prophets and teachers and we know who many of them are.

But the counter problem is that you fully embrace everything that someone else says because of who is saying it. And you do so without discernment. And they may be consistently right on time and time again but you can't quit searching the scriptures for yourself. That's not only dangerous, it's completely unbiblical. In Acts you know the story of Berea.

What was said about those in Berea concerning even what Paul was teaching? They were more noble than those in Thessalonica in that they received the word with all readiness of mind and searched the Scriptures daily whether those things were so. Some of you need to be more noble than those in Thessalonica and search the Scriptures to see if things you are hearing from people at this conference, including this session, is biblically right by searching the Scriptures yourself. There may be a good track record. There may be people you admire.

Maybe people you personally know, but just because they say it or do it or promote it, don't assume that it's biblical. Go back to the Scriptures to see if these things are so. And I pray that everything you hear at this conference is biblically sound. But as a student of the Word of God, you have to check for yourself to see if those things are true. Do not blindly follow what someone else says regardless of who is saying it.

Because the next teacher or the next organization or the next ministry that comes along may not be so biblically grounded and if you're not in the habit of searching the scriptures you're going to fall into the same trap and you never know where to lead you. You'll be misled, you'll be vulnerable because you're not in the habit of searching the scriptures. And as fathers we have this responsibility in leading our families to protect the souls of those who the Lord has entrusted to our family. Some of you have filters on the internet. You go out against certain movies and music and all the kinds of things, but you have no continual examination of the Scriptures regarding some of the people that you respect and what they say.

That's not healthy. If the Bereans kept Paul in check, how much more should we be students of the Word in regard to what we hear? And I'm not referring to going on a fault-finding mission, not picking somebody out that you don't like and then just trying to tear them apart. That's not what I'm speaking of. There's enough of that going out there.

This isn't about trying to destroy a ministry, but if a leader of an organization or the pastor of your church or the author of some book that you're reading speaks a certain truth, Check to see if it's true in the Scriptures. Don't just react. I'm afraid some of us, that's all we do. If it was mentioned at this conference, and you can pick several of the big names that are here, that someone felt that as Christians we need to do as Noah, and we just need to start sending out doves and forms of communication to each other brothers and sisters. Some of you would go home and start building bird cages without thinking twice about it.

Just because someone here said that. You would not examine the scriptures and say is this something biblical? I mean is there a command about sending out doves? I remember five or six years ago I knew a father known him for a little while. His wife and daughter wore head coverings.

I asked him about it and I just said hey so tell me about how the Lord led you to why do you guys wear head coverings? His response totally floored me. He said I don't know you have to ask them. I was like what? He said yeah you have to ask my wife why they do that.

And I was like, really? There was just a, there was no leadership obviously in the home as well as a lack of great communication. But it was a pattern that I saw. There was an embracing of things within the family based on just what other people were doing and saying even as the Father did not communicate or lead his family and had no reason for any conviction that was there in the family. And so even if the practice is biblical at least know why it's biblical according to the Scriptures.

Don't just blindly follow others. The Bereans didn't do that with Paul. You shouldn't do that with Scott Brown or Vody Balkin or Ken Ham or Doug Phillips. Any of those guys. You don't just blindly follow.

Anything they say is, well this must be straight from the Lord. You search the Scriptures yourself to see if it's true and those men would say the same thing. I'm gonna throw one more person in here men. That's your wife. I've seen this danger within family-integrated churches.

If the wife's okay with it, then it must be good. If she's okay with it, then it must be right. So we see families doing other things that some other family has done just because they're doing it. Or you say, well the Lord prompted my wife and we say, well then that's a given, it must be right. It may be, But that's not the way to practice Christian living.

You search the Scriptures to see if it's true. And let me back up a section, just a section here with the wives. Some of you wives have to be very careful because you'll leave a conference like this and you'll be ready to respond to something that was taught at this conference that some of these men have said and yet not be so quick to listen to your own husband. If it comes from someone standing behind a microphone it's like it's a given, it's from God and yet your husband will say things and you'll question them and question them. They may not be as wise as some of the men who will stand behind these microphones, but you're still his wife.

Follow him first. Search the scriptures. Men, lead your family in doing that. See if it's true, walk your family through it. Application here.

I was at a conference one time where the the man was actually challenging fathers to throw away their TVs. I was sitting in a spot where I had to view the whole room. I'll never forget, the challenge was up and there was a man who had his teenage son with him. They were kind of in the back and I had a good angle on them. So he said, how many of you dads will get rid of your TVs?

I'll never forget, one dad in the whole room stood up. I don't know if it's because he was the only one who had a TV or what, but he was the only one who said, I'm getting rid of my TV. So he stood up, and his teenage son was sitting beside him, and he was looking this way. Well, he heard the speaker say, well I see one man, he was kind of looking and he turned and saw that it was his dad. You should have seen the look on that kid's face.

It was like this, it was like, not the TV too. I mean he just had that fear of, no, it's my dad. And my whole point is not to bring up the whole TV issue. My exhortation to you as fathers and church leaders, as the Lord leads you, walk your families through what God is teaching you. Don't be reactionary and just jump to a conclusion that comes along or a truth that's mentioned and just do it because someone else has said so.

Search the scriptures, but do so in leading your families. Don't drag them along. Help them understand what it is the Lord is teaching you. I'm not saying back down from a conviction the Lord has brought you to, but care enough about your wife and your children to lead them by walking with them and sharing with them. I hope that dad when he got home didn't just go home and yank the TV out of the wall and throw it out to the curb.

I hope he led his family in how the Lord had led him because his whole family wasn't even with him. His family, nor your family, needs to see a dad who reacts to the latest teaching and just turns and does a knee-jerk reaction. Search the scriptures to see if that is true and then walk your family through it teaching them as you learn. Give your children to be a part of what God is doing in your heart instead of just on the receiving end of some kind of change in the family. We have to be leaders.

I'm thankful for Christian leaders and organizations like the NCFIC that have a good track record for what is being taught, what is promoted, what comes out of this organization. But don't think for a minute that that releases you from your responsibility to search the scriptures for yourself. Third danger is a a very low commitment to your local church. You would think that families that worship together or believe that families should worship together would not have this problem but I've seen it. There's a very low commitment many times to your local church.

And one reason I believe is what we addressed earlier there's the idolatry of family. The other part is possibly they don't have a biblical understanding of what the church is. They lack a good teaching in church of what the church is. But once again these dangers are subtle. They're not obvious.

There's a passage in the scriptures and we're going through the book of Matthew and there's a passage we came to in Matthew 12 which did not seem to be very family integrated. Let me read to you Matthew 12. Jesus, when I talk to the people, His mother and His brethren stood without desiring to speak with Him and said one unto Him, behold thy mother and thy brethren stand without desiring to speak with thee. But he answered and said unto him who is my mother and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand to his disciples and said behold my mother and my brethren For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven the same as my brother and sister and mother." First of all, Jesus has just been speaking to all these people, teaching truth straight from heaven.

He is God. He's standing there and there's somebody outside, when you're done your mama wants you. I mean 30 year old man. Most men that would be unsettling, but not to the King of Kings, the creator of the universe. But he teaches us a truth here.

He wasn't rejecting his family. He wasn't saying, enough with my biological family. It's all about church family now. That's not what he was saying. Jesus is not having a low level of compassion or involvement with his earthly family there.

However, for the disciples at that time and for us today, he did provide a teachable truth that we are to value our church family with an eternal perspective like we do our earthly family from a temporal perspective. Jesus continued to care for his family. I mean, to not do so would be contrary to Scripture itself. Even while he was on the cross, he made sure his mother was taken care of. He loved his earthly family, there's no doubt.

But he knew that the earthly relationships were only temporary. But our relationship with believers, those who do the will of the Father, is eternal. That's the difference. But many of us in here, although many believers exist within our own families, the greater relationship Jesus is saying is the eternal one between brothers and sisters in Christ. As he stretched out his hand toward his disciples, he says, these are my mother and my brethren.

But within those who attend family integrated churches, sometimes The mindset is that our family relationships will be eternal and the temporary relationship is with our church family. And we see that lived out week to week. There's no love and commitment and service to those within our local church body. There's no going the extra mile to reach out to those within our church family. You know what's so sad?

Some of you in here are more committed, you're more committed to attending these kind of conferences than you are those families that sit in your churches Sunday after Sunday. You go all out in making sure that you are at the next big event by the NCFIC or Vision Form or some other organization. You're more committed to those than you are the families that are in your local church who need you there for them. You've been over backwards making sure this conference happens for your family and yet there are families in your local assembly that have needs and struggles and you have no idea. For the sake of the body of believers, minister faithfully and eagerly to those in your local fellowship.

Don't ignore them and neglect them so that you can come and get your yearly conference fix. And I tell you what, and some of you are going to hate this because you know it's true, but when next year's conference comes around, it's possible, it's possible that the greatest ministry that you can do to some family in your local church would not be for you to come and go back and tell them how great of a conference they missed, but for you to pay their way so they could come. I've gone from preaching to meddling because I'm talking about your pocketbook now. It's going to cost you money. But let's face it, for some of you this is probably the fifth or sixth conference you've been to in a row.

You've got this stuff down. You could probably stand up here and teach exactly what I'm teaching. But put it in your heart now. Administer to some family in your local body that can't afford to come or that can come but doesn't think they need to come but if someone pays their way they'll come. Quit being highly committed to conferences and somewhat committed to your local church.

You've got it backwards. The NCFIC will will not suffer if you're not here next year. I promise you they'll be okay because you can send another family in your place. As if that wasn't an application, let me add this one. Begin praying faithfully for each family in your church.

You know it's really hard to overlook a family on Sunday when you've been praying for them Monday through Saturday. If you want to zero it in just a little bit more, maybe pick one family out of your church family that says we're going to pray for this family every day this week. Now keep organizations like this one, NCFI see on your prayer list as well, but for the sake of the kingdom and the love of the body of Christ, love the church. Pray for the church. Be committed to those eternal relationships that Jesus was speaking of, that God has given you in your local assembly.

Be faithful to them and that means more than just being there in attendance. Live sacrificially. Some of us limit our sacrificial living to just thinking that we're having a cut corner so that we can make the drive across the country to come here. But if you want to impact the kingdom of God, invest in your local church families like some of you invest in getting to these conferences. Help one another and be willing to come alongside one another with the families God has placed in your local assembly.

They are there for you to minister one to another. The fourth danger is not having a heart relationship with our children. Some of the most pressure-oriented performance-based families in our churches today are in the family-grade churches. It's a good chance I may be talking about your family right here. When all is said and done, what you as the mom or dad desire is for your kid to do the right things outwardly, whatever the cost.

Son, daughter, just don't mess up. People who respect us or people we respect are watching us. It's a dangerous place for a family to be and I've seen it in the family integrated churches. Now at first we appear to be great. You homeschool, you attend a family-grade church, you have unkempt children and they behave perfectly in public and they all dress in blue.

I mean it just you look like the model family. Now it's scriptural for children to obey parents. It's also scriptural for fathers not to exasperate their children, to anger their children. And how do you do that? Well, you throw out their nurture of the nurture and admonition.

You just admonish. Or kids are only praised and only feel loved when they've met our certain standards of what we think or the standards of what we think others have. And when a kid feels that, it's a very dangerous place to be as a child. And what happens is we raise performance-driven children who end up growing up thinking that their relationship with God and His love for them is based on their performance. The Lord loves me if I can play the violin or sit still during worship or sew a button or grind my own wheat.

I mean If I can do all those things." And they think that God loves them based on performance because that's the only time that mom or dad praise them or seem to connect with them or be proud of them. And what's so ironic is that many of these kids in their heads, they know in their head that God loves them because they've memorized Romans 5.8 but God committed his love towards us and that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. They know it right here but what they haven't done is experienced it from their professing Christian parents. In your home it's always about looking good and acting good and being good because our family has it all together, and we're gonna let everybody think so. And here at the conferences, well, that's like homecoming.

I mean, we all come here. I don't care what you do the other 51 weeks, we're gonna be perfect here. Because everyone here is watching us. Everybody's good here. There's a critical piece missing here and you know what it is?

You don't have the heart of your child dad. You have their outward behavior in the palm of your hand and they respect you enough because been taught to respect you to perform outwardly but you don't have their heart. Proverbs 23 26 pleads my son give me thine heart but for many in our homes it is my son give me your outward obedience be good impress others adhere to the curriculum dress the part perform perform perform For 18 years or so they will do just that until they leave the home. And then what happens? Something very devastating.

I tell you this from very personal experience. Now last year I could think of seven different families that I personally know who were homeschooled, attended family integrated churches, looked apart and now reek with sin. In fact about half of these families I would say were role model families that we could parade right in front of you here today and you would think wow Someday I want my family to grow up and be like that family. They attended conferences like this. I even attended with them.

Of these seven families, let me just give you a list of some of the things that have taken place in these families. Two marriages have ended in divorce. One's currently separated. One parent's in jail for murder. That's just the parents.

We ain't got to the kids yet. But then we turn to the kids. We see fornication, atheism, very open homosexuality, blasphemers because they do so on public websites, worldliness, astrology, vulgar language, haters of their parents, drunkenness, and on and on and on. Homeschooling, family-integrated church attending, modestly dressed families, just like you in here. Dad didn't have their heart.

These families had unsaved children. And there were some other common denominators I will look at here, but one is dad didn't have their heart. We have to admit it but we don't want to, But there are some Christian families whose kids attend public schools. The mom and dad both work outside the home. They go to a program driven, seeker-sensitive church and dad still has their heart.

But some of you that doesn't even bother because you're like, hey, at least I'm doing everything else right. But it should because the latter is the better of the two. It is better for your family to have, for you as a dad to have the heart of your children and to be in, for your children to be in love with Jesus and not in love with performance, and for you to attend some program-driven church, then for you to attend a family-integrated church and not have the heart of your child and for them to be haters of God. Some of you parents in here wouldn't make that switch. Even if it was offered to you because you are so performance driven and don't want to risk being seen as someone who does not have it all together.

Listen, when they at 18 Walk away and dive into all kinds of immoral sins and put them on Facebook. The secret is out. You didn't have it all together and they didn't love Jesus. So what do we do? How do we keep these tragedies from happening?

How do we keep the heart of our children? Plead with God to open our eyes. Let me give you a few observations of a consistent thing I was seeing in some of these families. But first of all, before I get to that, there are, I want you to tell your kids and live it out that they are loved no matter what. Because they're yours.

Because of who they are, not because of what they do. God doesn't love you because of what you do. He loves you in spite of what you have done. How much more should we as imperfect parents live that way before our children? I'm not referring to not having discipline or your family not having convictions.

That's not what I'm talking about. But showing that no matter what you love your children, whether they can't play one instrument or can play five instruments, whether they can recite the Old Testament or whether they can't even recite John 3 16, our children need to see the love of God that we have for them and they need to see it in us. Some of the patterns I saw in some of these families, first of all, they did not live joyfully. There was a lack of genuine joy in these families. The kind of Christianity where it was a chore of list of rules that they adhere to religiously.

It was more about I don't want to mess up instead of I want to follow Christ. Is that your family? Your kids aren't been on following Christ, they're just been on I don't want to mess up. And as Paul Washer stated earlier at this conference, they were separated from the world but they weren't separated to Christ. Another pattern is that mom ruled dad.

It was a common denominator. Dominant mom, passive father. She was calling the shots. Now she was smooth enough to hide it in a way that wouldn't even be noticed by most of her like-minded families. But there was a common denominator there of a dad who just took the back seat and mom who took the front seat.

And then you've got disaster because once again it's performance. You go to a place like this and nobody would know it except your kids. And when you get back home we know that mom really runs everything. And dad just submits quietly to keep the peace. The kids knew it over time and now a lot of other people know it.

Number four, don't assume that homeschooling or attending a family-integrated church will produce godly children. I think a lot of times people may even attend family-integrated churches for that reason or start homeschooling for that reason. They see a godly family, well-behaved kids and think, so I have to homeschool and go to that kind of church to get that result. I will do it." And they play the part and they never have the heart of their children. And then the last common denominator, there was no genuine love for Jesus.

A consistent theme here in these families was not for Christ or the gospel but a desire to conform and to look and to behave a certain way. These parents and their desire to get a certain result by doing outward things and not having the heart of their children lost them completely to the world. And you may not know so now, but there are some parents that you can talk to who have lost their children to the world and they will tell you It's always unrestful. There is a great joy in knowing as the scripture says your children walk in truth. The exact opposite is also true.

It is devastating. It is heart-wrenching to know your children are not walking in the truth. Make no mistake about it, there is a danger within family and greater churches of parents who truly don't have the hearts of their children. Fifth danger is an imbalance of Christian living. I realize the Lord has gifted us all differently and I understand the Lord directs church leadership in various ways to minister.

However, a trend I've noticed within family-integrated churches and is an imbalanced approach to Christian living. It seems that often within a family-integrated church or within the families within the family-integrated church there will become a focus on a particular doctrine or just the commitment to one certain type of ministry or a central theme of just one aspect of Christian living. And I realize we all have our soap boxes and we can talk about those things, but we have to be careful that we do not get to the place in our life where our Christian living is neglecting other vital parts of our walk with Christ. I thought I was getting sleepy in here, but I'm not sure what happened. To be a part of healthy church growth, healthy church living, there has to be a balance in the Christian life.

And quite honestly the imbalance is a inward focus. I can take a hint. Somebody wants me to go to my next point. Now listen, what happens though is a lot of times as you as we get into our family-grade churches and we start to get that inward focus, if we if we do have an outreach to others it's with other like-minded families. And if we do broaden our ministry mindset, it's usually within our comfort zone.

We won't do anything that is outside of our comfort zone. We want something that's easy and something that we know. And that's something that we have as believers to guard against. As a pastor of a family-regarded church, I realize that I may be doing some things that are right, but I certainly have not arrived. We still need God to stretch us.

So many families in family-regarded churches are just focused on a few particulars of their faith and completely ignoring other biblical commands within the scriptures. You know God and His Word, there's many times and it's really kind of neat. In fact when I started this I've seen more ever since. But you'll find a lot of different lists within the church, I mean within the scriptures. A couple of them.

2 Peter add your faith virtue to virtue knowledge, knowledge temperance. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. We got a list. Titus is filled with list for elders, older men, younger men, older women. I mean we see, we see list, list, list.

1 Peter 2, honor all men, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king. There's a list of four right there. Galatians 5 speaks of works of the flesh and there's a list. Sexual morality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry and the list goes on. And then the good list follows, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, and then there's another list.

You know, for some of you, all that's on your list is Calvinism. That's your list. It's one thing and that's all you focus on. That's all you teach and that's all that comes up in your discussions. For some of you it's homeschooling.

That's all you focus on. It's education. That's your Christian list is homeschooling. For some of you it's what I said earlier, it's your family. That is your list.

That is it. And the result, whatever your list is, because I know there are some, I didn't mention your list, but your husband knows it or your wife knows it or your kids know it, and you got one thing on your list. You're out of balance in your Christian life. You may have mastered a certain doctrine in this understanding, but you haven't once witnessed to your neighbors. It's sadly that most of us love the idea of family integration, But most of us love that and then will neglect the families within our family greater churches.

Our Christian living has become a steady diet of certain doctrines or Christian music or getting worked up over political issues and yet the Great Commission, which the Lord Jesus himself spoke before he left this earth, it's that important, will be completely neglected. And in our families, you may have trained your 14 year old son to look another father in the eye and give him a firm handshake, but then your boy doesn't know how to go out and do yard work and finish a job. Your teenage daughters may know how to dress modestly and work in the kitchen, but you dad never once have sent them over to that struggling young mother who's got six kids under the age of eight. You have never once sent your daughters, your older daughters over there to minister to her for a day. You live in your little family integrated bubble.

Better for your kitchen to be filthy and you send your daughters to another young mom in the church and minister to her for a day, Then you to come home to a physically clean kitchen and a family in your church be falling apart because your family is out of balance. And our young man is impressive at this conference as they may be. Fathers, have you trained them to share the gospel with others? Let me back up. Have they ever seen you sharing the gospel with others?

Can your son say, listen, I've learned to share the gospel from being with my dad when he has shared the gospel? You know what they learn from you? How to read more Christian books. That's what they say you do. And they leave ill-equipped because they've never been stretched administering to others.

Because dad's never been stretched. You see what I'm saying is most of us have no exception. It's real easy to get settled into our Christianity and only talking about certain issues we like or certain issues that we have studied and we talk about that with people that we pretty much agree with anyway. Meanwhile our neighbors and our co-workers and our extended family are heading straight to hell and we've never impacted their unsaved world other than to parade our children in front of them. Don't get so focused on one aspect of Christian living that you forget others, you forget the lost, you forget your neighbors or your extended family.

For the sake of the kingdom, go beyond your family integrated church. Look past the windows of your 15 passenger van and go beyond your homeschool co-op support group and minister to those who are hurting within your church and even those without your church. Because so far if you were honest with your self-examination, you've done nothing outside of your own church or even your own family to reach others. Let me challenge you with this application. Fathers consider talking to another brother in the Lord who knows you dearly and will be straight up with you.

Just ask them, what is it that I kind of always harp on and maybe you sense I'm lacking in my Christian walk, even with my family? That's a hard question to ask because you kind of don't want to hear it, but you need to. It'll help keep you in balance. But what you're doing is allowing God to speak some truth into your life through another brother or ladies, another sister in the Lord, to keep you more in balance with Christian life as God intended. You can examine your own hearts because somebody say well I'll just examine my own heart and do that.

The problem is sometimes we are so blinded We need a dear brother or sister to help us see through that blindness. Now don't leave this session thinking well he must not think doctrine is important. No, it is important. The purpose of doctrine is to produce holy living and that's what we're talking about. Not to accumulate head knowledge.

I think a lot of times sometimes we just there are those who study doctrine just to arm ourself for debate with someone else. But what we should believe should be lived out in our lives. And if we do believe the gospel and that that is the power of God unto salvation, then why in the world aren't you telling others? Because the gospel of Jesus Christ goes beyond hopping out of our vans and people looking going, wow what a big family. And they're also behaved and they don't throw food each other in the restaurants and you know it's sad but for some of you that's the extent of your family testimony.

People just seeing you. That's the most you've impacted your neighborhood is people have just seen your family. It needs to go beyond that because the devil is quite content with people just seeing you. But when you cross the street to open your mouth to speak to your neighbor, now he's worried. The last danger.

I shared this yesterday at the leadership luncheon. It's something that the Lord has walked our church family through with a great, I don't know, uniqueness about it. The last one is one of the dangers I see within family-grade churches is because of salt in ours. There's no local outreach to the poor. We have a great lack and not doing anything for the poor.

We preach through the book of Matthew. I came extremely bothered by a passage in Matthew 11 where John's disciples come to Jesus and say, hey are you the Messiah or should we look for someone else? And Jesus' response, He gave them six things that they could go back and say, just tell what you see here and here's six of them. And Jesus gives John's disciples six things and this is what he says, the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, and the dead are raised. Now those are five.

I've never personally seen or been a part of anything like that. I've never seen a blind man miraculously healed. I know Jesus has done that. I know God still does that today. I've never been a part of anything like that though.

I've never seen a lame man get up and walk. I don't even know any lepers. I've never seen a dead man raised. But it's those five that didn't bother me. It was the last one in Matthew 11 that I'm like, oh, Jesus said, and the poor had the gospel preached unto them.

Some of us, that sixth one has never happened. And what we do is we want to just get rid of the whole list because we haven't been a part of the first five. God's not calling us to raise the dead and to heal the blind, but he has called us to preach the gospel and he specifically said as the Messiah that is one thing I do I preach the gospel to the poor. You want to walk in the footsteps of Jesus? Preach the gospel to the poor.

In Galatians 2 9 we read of Paul and Barnabas being sent out as missionaries. They get together with Peter, James, and John and say, hey, we're going to the Jews. You go to the Gentiles. I mean these are some godly men. And so they're about to part ways.

They're about to go into and preach the gospel as Jesus had commanded them before he left this earth. And you know what they say to Paul? What kind of exhortation do they give in Galatians 2 to Paul before he leaves, before he goes out and does the work of the ministry? They say, remember the poor. And Paul says, well I was eager to do that anyway.

Sending out a missionary in our churches, it doesn't look that way. Even when we leave this conference, we will say, hey, you know, keep me on your newsletter or give me your card or send me an email or, you know, friend me on Facebook, you know, we'll say stuff like that. People will leave and we'll part ways that way, but what was Apostle Paul told? Remember the poor. I'm not talking about writing a check to another ministry that helps the poor.

Keep doing that. I mean locally ministering to those in your cities, in your neighborhoods, and you have to look. Those biblically poor are harder to find than you think, but it doesn't excuse us from not ministering to the poor. In comparison to remembering the poor, how many families do you think attend conferences like this or host their own or how many churches attend conferences like this or host their own but don't minister to the poor? I think a lot.

How many families in conferences like this will come to things like this and they'll buy tons of CDs and DVDs and books for their personal libraries and yet they don't do anything to minister to the poor. There is no command in Scripture to attend a conference like this or to build a personal library. But Scripture is filled with exhortations and promises about being generous to the poor. And the irony is that many of us in here will speak evil of our government for taking care of the poor saying that's not your job, this is a welfare state, you cannot do that and then we'll go home and do nothing. That's the church's job and it is, but then the church doesn't do a thing.

We sit back and continue to complain about the government and what's more disturbing is, and this really bothers me, if a church does minister to the poor and to the needy and to the hurting, it's usually not a conservative Bible believing church. This should make all of us broken hearted and then angry. Because most churches that minister to the poor are liberal social gospel churches. If there's a gospel at all. How devastating to our Lord that those who have the saving gospel of Jesus Christ and believe it and preach it and then never do so to the poor and leave that up to the liberal churches.

We are so lukewarm. Pat ourselves on the back because we got the family integration thing down and then we'll just make sure we keep looking another way when it's brought up about reaching the poor. Three things you can do, dads, church leaders, and preparing to minister to the poor because now you've heard it. You've got to do something with what you heard. I was so grateful that I was looking on the session in brother Rob Tartt's session tomorrow morning about how you can locally minister to the poor.

Attend that conference, attend that session. If you can't make the session, buy the CD. Arm yourself. How can we reach the poor? Second, do a word study on the word poor as referring to the poor and needy.

Just do a word study throughout the scripture. You'll be amazed at what God says about the poor. Just look up in the concordance and have all the kids say, hey read this verse, this verse, this verse. See what God says about the poor and you'll see, man, there is a great lack of our remembering the poor. And then seek diligently, Lord, how do you want us to minister to the poor?

How do you want us to share the gospel as a family, as a church to the poor and needy? You might be surprised at what he will lead you to do. I've covered six dangers. I'm sure there's more. They're not on the surface, they're lurking, they're there.

I thank God for the opportunity to share today. I still have much to learn. The Lord continues to prune and prod and purge me. And although I did speak about attending conferences like this and that being a high place for some, I'm very grateful for conferences like this. The exhortation, the encouragement, the strengthening of families.

But for the sake of the gospel, don't think this is it. You know some of you go wow this is a little bit like heaven isn't it? Well it's really not. Bible says there's a beggar in heaven. I haven't seen one since I've been here.

There's poor people in heaven. You guys either drove or flew. I don't think anybody had to walk here. There's there's I don't know there's any poor people truly poor people here unless someone completely paid their way and So in that sense it's kind of really not going to be like heaven. But conferences like this should be a part of your Christian growth, not the substance of it.

Because when you go home with what you've heard, that's where the growth will happen. That's where the difference will be made. So don't just live till the next upcoming conference. In the meantime though, preach boldly the gospel to those that you encounter and seek to minister to the poor and the hurting and dads go after the heart of your children. Plead with God to give you the heart of your children and whatever you hear at this session and the rest of this conference, search the Scriptures to see if it's true.

Lead your family lovingly and graciously as the Lord leads you and love and serve your church family those that the Lord gave his life for. Let's pray. Father I just ask that you would make us more like Jesus to preach the gospel to the poor to minister to the hurting to understand the perspective of our church family in the eternal relationships there. Some have been bothered in here by what they've heard today, Lord. Maybe angry, But Father, we all are to continue to walk down a path that is not easy.

And Father, I just ask that you would, Especially for the fathers in this room. Lord, teach us to be more like Jesus. To be aware of dangers like this. To know the enemy is seeking to kill, steal, and destroy. How foolish for us to think that we have made it and we're safe in our family and greater churches.

Lord, thank you for your word. For the perfect example of Jesus. In his name we pray, amen. For more messages articles and videos on the subject of conforming the church in the family to the Word of God and for more information about the National Center for Family Integrated Churches where you can search our online network To find family integrated churches in your area, log on to our website, ncfic.org. You