There are certain questions that are asked by those who are new or unfamiliar with the ideas if family-integration and family discipleship. These questions are natural objections and concerns that arise from decades of living in a church culture that is completely devoted to the age segregated model of ministry. Thankfully, there are answers to these common questions and good answers that demonstrate that, despite the objections, family-integration is not only the preferred method but more importantly the biblical one.

Answering the objections to the Family Integrated Church. As we deal with this issue of answering these objections, I want you to understand where I'm coming from. Answering objections here is not from the standpoint of, oh, we're right, you're wrong, let me prove it. Answering objections, the reason that we do this session is because those of us in family integrated home discipleship circles, whatever you want to call it, are so used to answering the same questions over and over and over again, that when we share notes, we've come to realize that there are only five or six. Literally, literally.

I've never been asked more than these five or six questions about the Family Integrated Church. So the reason that we do this session is because we figure if there are only five or six questions that everybody has, and I mean everybody. Scott and I had the privilege, we received a call from Randy Stinson at Southern Seminary, and they are really doing some amazing things there at Southern as it relates to family discipleship, family integration, and trying to see how this fits into the overall scope of things. So he called us and asked us to do a teleconference with a PhD colloquium there. And so we thought, man, Some PhD students at Southern Seminary, awesome!

We'll finally get something other than the same five or six questions. Everybody asks the exact same questions. I just, you know, if you think of one, I would just really be delighted after this. If you just, just make up one when we're done, okay? It'd be great.

But I say that to say that this is actually encouraging. And I want you to be encouraged. Because I want you to realize, number one, that you're not alone in the questions that you have about this movement and about what we're talking about, but secondly that there are answers to your questions. Now I'll say ahead of time, you might not like the answers to your questions, but there are answers to these questions. A quote that we've heard a lot, this quote from Richard Baxter, it's there I think in your program, one of these is there, where Baxter in the Reformed Pastor says, you are not likely to see any general reformation till you procure family reformation.

Some little religion there may be here or there, but while it is confined to single persons and is not promoted in families, it will not prosper nor promise future increase. But listen to what he says to pastors. Pastors must have a special eye upon families to see that they are well ordered and the duties of each relation performed. The life of religion and the welfare and glory of both the church and the state depend much on family government and duty. If we suffer the neglect of this, we shall undo all.

What are we like to do ourselves to the reforming of a congregation if all the work be cast on us alone? And masters of families neglect that necessary duty of their own by which they are bound to help us. If any good be begun by the ministry in any soul, a careless, prayerless, worldly family is likely to stifle it or very much hinder it. Whereas if you could but get the rulers of families to do their duty, to take up the work where you left it, and help it on, what abundance of good might be done. I beseech you, therefore, if you desire the reformation and welfare of your people, do all you can to promote family religion.

He got it. He got it. And amazingly, you know, people ask this question. It's not an objection, but it's a common question that we're asked. And I love this question.

And those of you who don't know me very well, I like to have fun with people and I especially like to have fun with questions that people ask. And I am by nature an apologist and so I'm always kind of on my toes as far as apologetics and questions and things of that nature and so I do I love that and I love to see people squirm also you know for example we have we have adopted children and you know So I love it when people come up and they know that we have adopted children and they go, well, which ones are yours? All of them. No, I mean, which ones are your natural children? So you're saying some of my children are unnatural?

Well, you know, which ones are your real children? Oh, now they're not real. I just love it. I stop eventually, you know, tears streaming down people's faces. But, you know, I do.

And so another question that comes to me like that is people always go, you know this family integrated church thing, how long exactly has it been around? Acts? I mean literally. The systematically segregated church is the new phenomenon. Not the age-integrated church.

Think about that for a moment, okay? The new phenomenon is this idea of breaking people up into component parts, if you will, into these varying groups and sending them off with specialists. That is the anomaly. That is the blip on the historical radar. The Family Integrated Church is not the new thing.

The Family Integrated Church actually represents Reformation. It is not the new thing. And so, Even so, there are many questions and many objections that people have to the Family Integrated Church, and here are those common objections. I would say the most common objections, but they're literally the only objections that I've ever heard. I've heard of others that are some formulation of these, but these are the only ones.

Objection number one, the family integrated church won't reach teens with unbelieving parents. That's objection number one, okay? That's always the first question that people ask, if not one of the first questions that people ask. What about teenagers who don't have Christian parents? I understand what you're saying about families stepping up and doing this discipleship, But 70% of the kids in our youth group don't have Christian parents.

What about the kids who don't have believing parents? There are some assumptions inherent to this objection. Like, for example, Number one, that the family integrated church has actually replaced a system that is effective in evangelizing youth. Amen? Or have you seen the fact that our number of youth baptisms are declining precipitously?

My supervisor, I was here at Southeastern Seminary, this is a man by the name of Alvin Reed, Dr. Reed in his book Raising the Bar, notes that since 1970, the number of trained youth professionals has grown exponentially. But over that same period, our number of youth baptisms, and I would add our youth retention, have also declined steadily. So newsflash, the better we've gotten at youth ministry, the worse we've gotten at youth evangelism. If you can't say amen, you ought to say ouch.

So that's the first assumption inherent in this question. You know, well what are you going to do to reach those kids to help you if you believe we're reaching them now. The fact of the matter is 70 to 88% of them are leaving by the end of their freshman year in college. 70 to 88% are leaving by the end of their freshman year in college. So again, inherent in this objection is the idea that right now we have something that is working wonderfully and it's dangerous to mess with something that's working wonderfully.

That's not the case. By the way, we're losing those 70 to 80%. And here's what I like to do. I like to find youth pastors, not guys who are new, okay? No, no, no, no, no.

Give me a guy who's been doing it 20, 25 years. And I regularly ask this question of guys who've been in youth ministry for 20 or 25 years. I say, you look me in my eye and tell me. Because I don't even ask them if they see this 70 to 88% failure rate. I don't even ask that question anymore.

Yes, they see that. No, nobody denies that anymore, okay? We know that what we're doing doesn't work. But What I want to ask them is this. You've been doing this 20, 25 years.

Who's the kid that stays? Who's that kid? When you look out there, you've been doing this 20, 25 years. Who's the kid that's going to stay? One of two kids.

Number one, the kid who doesn't need me because his dad's discipling him at home. Or number two, the kid whose home life is so bad that he basically lives with me. In which case, I'm discipling him at home, okay? Now are there other exceptions? Of course there are.

But Again, if we're honest, and we've been there, this is what we see. This is what's happening. It's not that the system that we currently have is producing monumental successes. No, no. Second assumption, that the best and or only way to evangelize teens is through youth ministry.

Nothing can be further from the truth, if for no other reason than the two that I just mentioned. That is not the best or only way to evangelize teens. Answering this objection, first of all, evangelism is a biblical mandate that must follow biblical models. Secondly, reaching teens is a relative term. Remember, 70 to 88 percent, they're walking away.

Are they reached? John would say not. First John 2.19, they went out from among us because they were not all of us. If they had been of us, they would have remained with us. But they went out from us so that it might be shown that they are not all of us.

OK? So have they been reached? No, they haven't been reached. Thirdly, family discipleship and home education are proven evangelism tools. Proven evangelism tools.

Here's what I tell people. There's a lot of people get upset with me because of talking about these issues of family integration, these issues of home education, and they get upset with me. How upset do you ask? Well, anyway. When people ask me, why?

Why do you keep talking about, especially the education thing? You know that upsets people. You know that offends people. Why? Because I know what the primary indicators are, and young people retaining the faith of their parents.

And they are where, how, and by whom the child is educated. We're losing 70% to 88% of our young people by the end of their freshman year in college. Yet we know from Mary, after 20 years of longitudinal research, that children who are educated at home stay in the faith of their parents all the way through their college years at a rate of 94%. How can I know that and stay silent? How?

How can I know that and not grab people who I love by the collar and say, get them out? How? How can I? How can I? These are the facts.

Kindergarten through 12th grade, a child spends 14, 000 seat hours in school. 14, 000 seat hours. You give him this season for 14, 000 hours, he will become a Roman. By the way, here's what I'd like to tell church folks. If you're really interested in evangelizing teens and making a difference, maybe I'll think about getting those 14, 000 hours.

Don't start a youth ministry, start a school. Just a thought, if we're really interested in evangelizing those teens, If we're really interested in retaining them in the faith, it's a whole lot easier just build a little building over there and get a Pied Piper to come, put some smoke in the room, some music in the room, dip a few of them in the water, than it is to actually get your hands dirty in the true discipleship of their lives. Listen to this from Christian Smith. Christian Smith was the chair of the sociology department at UNC Chapel Hill. I think now he's at Notre Dame.

But the project, it was a $4.5 million research project, a national study of youth and religion. His findings were reported in a book called Soul Searching. Listen to what Smith, a sociologist, says. Our research suggests that religious congregations are losing out to school and the media for the time and attention of youth. When it comes to the formation of the lives of youth viewed sociologically, faith communities get a very small seat at the end of the table for a limited period of time.

The youth formation table is dominated structurally by more powerful and vocal actors. Hence, most teens know details about television characters and pop stars, but many are quite vague about Moses and Jesus. By the way, that's the way we like it. That's the way we like it. We want them to know more about television and pop stars than about Moses and Jesus.

We like it like that. And you look at me and you say, well no we don't. Well then how come everybody who finds out that I homeschool my kids always ask me about them being socialized? What, pray tell, does that mean? Aren't you worried that your kids won't be worldly enough?

Most youth are well-versed about the dangers of drunk driving, aids, and drugs, but many haven't a clue about their own tradition's core ideas. Many parents also clearly prioritize homework and sports over church attendance. Don't believe me? Do an event during baseball season, soccer season, football season. And so again, the objection is, This movement, this movement is not going to reach these young people who don't have believing parents.

To which I respond, we're not reaching those people now. But here's what I do know. If we reach them the way we're claiming to reach them now, we are failing miserably, 70% to 88%. But you give me his daddy, and I don't have to worry about reaching that teenage kid. You give me his daddy, and I got him.

Most effective youth evangelism strategy? Evangelize men. Objection number two. The family integrated church abandons teens whose believing parents won't disciple them. This is the other question that we get.

I understand what you're saying, but most of the parents at our church, they wouldn't even know where to begin to disciple their own kids, which is ironic because most of them grew up in the church. Amen. By the way, here's another little aside. Just another question that I like to ask, because I do like to ask those questions. Because people say, they ask me this all the time, okay?

Okay, I understand what you're saying, and I understand that I'm with you, but these parents don't know how, they just won't do it. Okay, fine, let's just leave that over there for a moment and just assume, let's assume you're right about that. If you're right about that, it would seem to me that the number one goal in your youth ministry then would be to raise teens to be effective husbands, wives, mothers, and fathers so that they would not have to rely upon people like you to do for their kids what you're doing for them. But is that our number one goal in youth ministry? No.

No. Not at all. No. No. Not at all.

Answering this objection, First, these teens are already abandoned by those responsible for their evangelism and discipleship. They're already abandoned. They've been abandoned by those parents. Secondly, the answer is to restore responsibility and accountability, not to facilitate sin. Anybody who calls himself a Christian, but is not willing to do whatever it takes to disciple their own children, As far as I'm concerned, and I know 1 Timothy 5.8 is talking about the provision of those physical needs, but I don't think it's a stretch to say that the same would apply to that individual.

He's denied the faith. He's worse than an infidel. Anyone who refuses to do whatever it takes, the disciple is on children. He's denied the faith, he's worse than an infidel. So we got bigger problems here.

That's sin, address the sin. When people aren't giving, what do we do? Do we give on their behalf? No, we keep preaching give, give, give. We do whole series on it because it's not happening.

When people are not active in our churches, what do we do? Do We just go out and hire other people to do, well yeah, actually we do. But anyway. Anyway. So many things that people are not doing that we just preach on over and over and over again, and harder and harder and harder.

This area, we teach them that their sin is not only okay, but it's a good thing, because it gives us job security. Thirdly, it's our job to assist and equip, not to usurp. My role, according to Ephesians chapter 4, is to do what? To equip the saints for the work of the ministry. Not to do it for them.

It's not my job. Why is it, if God has called me to be a pinky toe, okay, little old bitty gnarly pinky toe out there on the side of the foot somewhere. Why am I going to go and try to do the job of the eye? I'd be a terrible eye if God created me to be a pinky toe. But that's what we're doing.

I know that that's what God's called you to do. But it's okay. It's okay. You just shrivel up and die. We'll get another body part to come in here and do that for you.

85% of parents of children under the age of 13 believe that they have the primary responsibility for teaching their children about religious beliefs and spiritual matters, 85%. Just 11% said their church was primarily responsible. Only 1% said that this was mostly the domain of the child's school. 96% of parents of children under 13 contend that they have the primary responsibility for teaching the children values. 96%, folks, it's hard to get 96% of people to agree that it's hot in Houston when it's 105 degrees outside, okay?

96% of people. It's our job to teach our children values. Only 1% said that it was the responsibility of their church. However, the majority do not spend any time during a typical week discussing religious matters or studying religious material with their children. And those that do average less than 30 minutes in a given week of any kind of meaningful discussion about religious matters.

Whose job is it, Mom or Dad? It's my job. How you doing? Well, you know, most of these parents are willing to let their church or religious center provide all of the direct religious teaching and related religious experience that their children receive. And why shouldn't they?

Because for 30 years, we've been telling them, we're trained professionals. Please don't try this at home. That guy over there, he knows your teens. You don't know your teens. Don't try to.

Do you see his hair? Come on, you can't do that. So what happens? Parents typically have no plan for the spiritual development of their children, do not consider it a priority, have little or no training in how to nurture a child's faith, have no related standards or goals that they are trying to satisfy, and experience no accountability for their efforts. That's what's typical.

No plan, not a priority, no training, no standards or goals, and no accountability. That's what people experience. That's what the hundreds, thousands of emails that I've received say over and over and over again. Some of them from guys in the ministry. I can't tell you how many guys in the ministry, especially youth pastors, who write me going, man, read your stuff, been listening to your stuff.

God's just really used it because I had no idea how to disciple my family. I had no idea. This is the guy who's the pastor of other people's teenagers. We don't know. And we all acknowledge that we don't know.

Don't just awaken and challenge the warrior, but send him back to the battlefield. What do I mean by that? Here's what's happened lately. There's been a movement in the church towards men's ministry. And I could name off programs that many of you are probably doing in your churches.

These programs that are calling men to be men, calling men to stand up. And it's incredible, it's great, and we have all these sort of programs that guys are going through, and all this information that guys are learning, and we're telling them to step up and lead and be the spiritual leader in your home, but after a while it sort of peters out. You know why? Here's why. Because it's sort of like walking up to a guy who's a warrior, and he's been trained as a warrior, special forces.

And you see him, and his uniform's sloppy. And he's a little soft around the middle. He hasn't been taking care of himself. His boots are not shined and you walk up to him and you look him in the face and you say, do you know who you are? You're a warrior.

You were trained to do better than this. Get yourself back in shape. Get your uniform clean. Get your new... And you do all of that and he comes back and he's spit shined and he's rock hard again, But you never send him back to the battlefield.

That's what we're doing with men today. Stand up, be a man. Be a spiritual leader in your home. OK, yes sir, I will, sir. I'm going to disciple my kids.

No, no, no, we got that taken care of. Well, I'm gonna mentor her and I'm gonna lead my wife. Nah, got something for her too. So we got a bunch of guys polishing up their boots, getting their weapons clean, getting in shape, and we have no intention of sending them back to the battlefield. Of looking them in the eye and saying, I double dog dare you to be the priest, prophet, provider, and protector of your home.

I'm not gonna do it. You don't wanna disciple your kids, they're not gonna get discipled. Now, what you gonna do? Well, I don't know how I'm gonna find somebody to teach you. You better go disciple your wife, too.

Well, She knows more than I do. Huh, seems like you better be studying while she's sleeping. She reads one book, you read two. Let's go man up, baby, That's what I'm talking about. Man up, now.

But it's so hard, don't tell me about the pain, just show me the baby. Come on now. Now, we're joking here, but ultimately that's what men need, a challenge. Somebody to look them in the eye and stop pacifying them. And put them back in their God-given roles and stop doing what God has called and created them to do.

Stop robbing them of the right and responsibility of being the priest, prophet, provider, and protector in their own homes. And stop making excuses for them when they don't. Listen to this from Brad Wagoner. Nothing will spur a father toward godly spiritual discipline in his own walk with Christ, more than leading his family in worship. In order to teach his wife and children, he will have to study the scriptures on his own.

A godly woman will be encouraged and inspired as she sees her husband take responsibility and lead in family worship. This practice sets a tone of harmony and love in the household and is a source of strength when they go through affliction together. As they pray for each other, their mutual love is strengthened. Reading and memorizing scripture in the catechism of the church result in incredible development of children, both spiritually and intellectually. What families regard as important is evidenced by the manner in which they spend their time.

Therefore, regular family worship shows the children that their parents believe that Jesus Christ is central to all of life. This practice leaves a legacy that will benefit thousands in generations to come. Brothers, I wish I had time to tell you story after story after story of men in our church back in Houston that we started almost two years ago, who have come to us, I mean they've come to us, and some of these guys have been leaders in churches that they've come from before, Who come to us early on saying, brothers, you gotta help me. Cause my kids are busting my chops. They're saying stuff like, everybody else in the church doing family worship and catechism and we're not doing it.

Why you not doing it? I don't know how to do it. Give me a Sunday school department to be the chairman of, I can do that for you. Deciphen my kids? I don't even, I don't know, come here from Sikkim when it comes to doing that.

Same guy, four weeks later, standing up at a men's meeting with tears coming down his face, talking about the fact that he wouldn't give anything for the way his wife and children look at him now. Couples who come to us, I've had couples come to me and say, you know what, you didn't even realize how bad off our marriage was. Would you all go get counseling somewhere? No. He manned up and started leading, became priest, prophet, provider, and protector in his home.

His wife became the happiest woman in the world. And they dealt with things that they never even talked about. And I could give you story after story after story, not of people who were already these like-minded folks when they got there. It's another myth about the family integrated church. Oh, you're just a bunch of like-minded people who already get it.

Oh, if we had time. We get people who come in, they're crazy, okay? God gets a hold of them, and God transforms them. Well what if you have men and they're not, they're not spiritually mature and they don't know enough to lead differently? Here's what we do.

We give them the catechism and we bring them real close to us. And we say, shh, come here. What, shh, shh, listen. I don't want your wife or your kids to hear this. You only got to stay one day ahead.

They think He hung the moon. He just got it the night before. And guess what? He's being discipled too. Do you see this?

He's being catechized while he's catechizing his family. And you're killing two birds with one stone. It's not rocket science, people. It's not. So we're absolutely not abandoning kids whose Christian parents won't disciple them.

First of all, any parent who won't disciple their child, I'm not gonna call a Christian. Now we are giving them what they need more than anything. Parents who are held accountable to do what God's called them to do. Objection number three, the family-integrated church alienates singles and single mothers. I get this all the time.

I get people calling from all over the place about this. I have phone calls. It's amazing. It's always interesting too. When you talk to these people for 10 minutes, they realize that they weren't thinking.

I mean, they weren't. They call you and they go, man, I see what you're saying and I'm almost there. Just a couple of things and I'm just not, you know, like what do you do with singles? Let me see, we love on them, we disciple them, we minister to them, we do the same thing we do with everybody else. We definitely don't send them to the leper colony down the hall.

Colony down the hall, where most places do. We get our hands dirty in their lives. Every one of the singles in our church has been at the home and at the table of every one of the elders in our church. Now, how many churches can say that? Answering this objection, number one, And I know this seems obvious, but so many people just don't, I'm embarrassed that I have to answer this, okay?

Number one, family-integrated churches don't preach family messages every week. I do. I'm just wondering how a single wouldn't feel alienated. I mean, if you're always preaching on marriage and on family and I'm just, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, who told you that? When we started our church, we preached through Ephesians, verse by verse, line by line.

We finished Ephesians, now we're preaching through Mark. We're in chapter 14 now. We finish Mark, we're gonna preach Genesis 1 through 11. We preach the Word, the whole counsel of God. We don't stand up and give a little ditty on the family every week.

We're a church, folks. We're a church. And everybody needs the whole counsel of God, whether they're single or married. Scripture speaks to all issues for all people. Thirdly, singles and single parents are part of families.

You realize that? Singles are still part of families, and they need to be in the company of other believing families as well. It's tremendous when our younger singles are actually involved in the lives of married couples. And they're learning from those couples and from those families. They're engaging with those couples and those families.

We have a nine-month-old at home, and I'm just picturing in my mind, one of our single men, he's a guy in his late 20s, early 30s, you know, this picture of him holding our nine year old, I mean our nine month old rather, you know, just sitting out there holding this nine month old. It's awesome. It's incredible. He's over a house for a meal with a couple of other families and he had to hold the baby and talk about that stuff. Where's he going to get that in the singles room?

He's not. He's not. Where's he going to run elbows and have fellowship with men who are married and leading families like he hopes to one day? He's not. College students.

It's incredible. They love it. Single mothers. What does a single mother want more than anything else for her children? For them to know that their life is not the norm and it's not what they have to settle for.

They want them to see pictures of intact families. They want them to engage with godly men who are leading their families biblically, and that's precisely what these single mothers get as part of a family-integrated church. They love it. I dare you to try to come take one of our single mothers away, or single women away from our church. They'll fight you.

Objection number four. The family integrated church is inherently unevangelistic. It's just, you know, you just got all these people and they all think alike and you know, you're all homeschoolers and you're all this and you're not gonna reach out to other people. There are assumptions inherent in this objection. Number one, this assumes that evangelism is a programmatic issue.

Well, it's not. Evangelism is about believers sharing their faith with unbelievers, regardless of what the church structure is. Secondly, the question assumes that evangelism is a function of systems and structures. Thirdly, this objection assumes that evangelism is the responsibility of leadership. All flawed assumptions.

How do we answer this objection? A couple of ways. First, we've got to be honest again. Few churches are evangelistic, whether they're family integrated or not. Less than 1% of evangelicals share their faith on a regular basis.

Less than 10% of all American evangelicals have ever led anybody else to Christ. Less than 10%. And people have the audacity to say that the family integrated church is unevangelistic. Being a part of a family integrated church could not possibly be more of a hindrance to evangelism than the current status quo. Teaching people to evangelize their children is inherently more evangelistic.

Parents who are held accountable for this task must become familiar with the gospel, They must become sensitive to the movement of the Spirit. They must be prayerful in anticipation of opportunities. And they must proclaim the Gospel with a view toward repentance and faith. This is evangelistic. We're teaching all of our people to be evangelistic.

All of them. And not just with their own children in their own home. One of the things we encourage the people in our church is the ministry of hospitality. You read through the book of Acts and what do you find? You find this phrase from house to house over and over and over again.

And so we just tell them, hey, just try it. Once a month have somebody over from the church, and once a month have somebody over from the neighborhood with a view towards sharing your faith. Because we believe that there are few things that are as attractive in our contemporary culture as a well-ordered family. Not even a perfect family. No, no, no, no.

Just a well-ordered family, where people aren't screaming and throwing stuff at each other. You have people over to your house, over at your table, and they will stop you and ask you to share the hospital with them. They won't know that that's what they're asking, but they're gonna, what's up with y'all? What's happening, you know? We've had people ask us, can you guys help?

Do you do like Family counseling stuff, you know? A 60-year-old man in my house, first generation Italian immigrant, 62 years old, he and his wife. They've been married 42 years. They both came here from Italy. Sitting in the house after dinner, and our older children were cleaning up, and we're going and making coffee, and we're learning, they learn how to get out of their shot when it's time for adults to have conversation.

They learn how to be servants when people come over our home as well, and how to be polite, and how to be, and they watch the interaction at the table, they see the interaction of the children. Afterwards the pleasantness in the house, this 60 year old man, first generation Italian immigrant seeing more things than I could even imagine, he starts to weep. And I said, John, are you okay? And John DeJulio looks at me and says, your family gives me hope. And he says to me, I want my kids to bring their grandkids to your house for a meal.

We're in their home regularly. They're in our home regularly. They're a Catholic family with whom we're sharing the Gospel. And there are families all over our church with the same kind of testimony. We have people in our homes and we share life with them and ultimately they want to know what's different.

And so we tell them. And the answer is the Gospel. The Gospel. So no, this movement is not inherently unevangelistic. Objection number five.

Family Integrated Church Movement ignores the callings of thousands of youth ministers. It's another objection that we get. Where are these guys out there? And God called them to be youth pastors. What are you gonna do with that?

Well, first of all, any calling must be evaluated biblically. Secondly, God does not call us to job descriptions. He calls us to himself and to his service. Thirdly, a subjective desire to reach teens does not override the fact that youth ministry is not a biblical function of the church. For example, what would you say to a person who says, okay, people who come from the Protestant perspective, person comes to you and they say, I believe God's called me to be a priest.

They go, Like a Catholic priest? Yes, I believe God's calling me to be a priest. I'm gonna go to a monastery and I'm gonna go to a seminary, I'm gonna be a priest. What would you say to that person? God called them.

Are you gonna question their calling? Hmm? Well, no, no, no, that's different. Well, how is it different? How is it different?

Well, because in order for God to call them to the priesthood, then Catholicism would have to be something that was, let's say it together, biblical. Huh. Can I be honest with you? I'd have a much easier time making a biblical argument for the priesthood than I would for youth ministry. At least I can go and mess up some stuff with Peter, okay?

I mean I could, you know what I mean? At least I'd have a biblical text in context. I'd be making a theological leap in logic, but at least I'd be in biblical text in context making my argument. Where do you go to make the argument for youth ministry? Biblical text in context.

Where do you go? You can't get there from here. And so again, how can we say on the one hand if someone comes to us and says, well God's called me to the priesthood. No, no, no, we can't do that because we have to go back to the scriptures and evaluate calling biblically, but if someone says, God called me to youth ministry, we all throw up our hands and go, well hey, you can't argue against youth ministry, God called them to it. Now just think about stuff.

Objection number six. Family Integrated Church movement commits the fallacy of the excluded middle. Now you know the fallacy of the excluded middle. You say something has to be either this or that when there's actually a third option. You're just presuming it as though there's only two options, but there's a third option.

And so opponents claim that the FIC, proponents, assume unfairly that there must be an either-or answer to the current crisis. Their assertion is that it does not have to be either youth ministry slash systematic segregation or family discipleship. We can have both. That's the argument. We can have both.

That's the objection. You guys are throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Oh, if I could have a dollar for every time I heard that one. You know? Are there problems?

Yes, there's problems. Yes, we need to get families engaged. Yes, we need to get families involved. But you don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Answering this objection, first, these two options are mutually exclusive.

These two options are mutually exclusive. If this is a parental responsibility, and the church's job is to equip and encourage and hold families accountable for doing what the scriptures call them to do. There is no room for us to take it upon ourselves to set up structures that would actually work in opposition to that. These two ideas are mutually exclusive. And again, I know a lot of people don't want to get there.

A lot of people don't want to go there. And a lot of you right now are working in situations, okay, where you're trying to do this halfway thing, you know? And I understand that, and I appreciate that. Amen, hallelujah, praise the Lord, God bless you, go ahead. Come see me when you realize you can't do it, but go ahead, okay?

Because here's the other problem. Attempting to have both will lead to disunity in the church. One of the things you'll end up is you'll end up with a varsity and a JV mentality. We're varsity parents. We do the family discipleship thing.

They're JV. They send their kids over there. Now will people say this? No, they won't say it. But it'll be understood.

There will be disunity and disharmony in the church. There will be. Next. Parents will be alienated for not participating in church structures. For not participating in church structures.

We have a guy in our church right now who was fired from his church position. Because he caught the family discipleship bug and started getting after it in his home and stopped participating in some of the things at his church because number one, he found out he was able to do a better job and secondly, he didn't like the influence that his kids were experiencing in this other environment. To which his pastor responded, you stop attending, other people will think they can stop. We've got to support the church programs. And if the church has this program over here to do what we're also telling families it's their job to do over there, How do we serve two masters without loving the one and hating the other?

Finally, there would have to be a compelling biblical reason to add youth ministry slash systematic segregation to any church. There would have to be a compelling biblical reason. This is what I tell people when they ask, well why can't you guys do both? I would have to have a compelling biblical reason to add some sort of systematic segregation to what we're doing. We'd have to have something, something, something.

Why? Why should we? Even if we just wanna talk pure pragmatism, okay? I mean, forget book chapter and verse. Don't even give me book chapter and verse.

Just give me a purely pragmatic reason. Now where are you going to go? Back to the previous five objections, because all of those are based in the pragmatic reasons we do what we do. These are the objections, folks. I wish I could say we've heard more.

I wish. But these are the objections and variations on these objections. And that's it. And we'll answer them over and over and over and over again. But here's what I want to say.

I want you to notice this, and this is what was amazing when we got off the phone with that PhD colloquium, and we've since done it again, I've done it again with another PhD colloquium, we talked to these professors. We're talking about the best and brightest theological minds coming up today. Not one of these objections is biblical. Not one. Not one of these objections says, well actually you have misapplied this theological principle.

Or you have misused this, not one of these objections. Now we've gotten that from time to time. There's a very interesting article that Scott sent me not long ago. I got a wonderful kick out of that article, because they were trying to make the argument for the way we do our systematically segregated youth ministry deal from Titus II. They were trying to say, well, you've got Titus II there.

And you have the older and the younger and this and that and the other, and making that argument for that sort of deal. And I'm just kind of, I'm giggling. I'm laughing. I go, no. Titus II is actually the antithesis.

It is an argument for age integration. How else do the older women get to teach the younger women? Help me on that one. Well, no, no, no, you don't understand. Even within that context, you see, you have the older, more mature youth, you know, your juniors and seniors, and they will help the younger youth, you know, like the freshmen and the sophomores or the junior high kids, or the senior high kids and the junior high kids.

Interesting. Based on Titus 2? Well, yes. Okay, Titus 2, for example, says that older women are to teach the younger women how to love their husbands and children. How to be sensible and pure and workers at home.

You got the senior high girls teaching the junior high girls at? First of all, help you if you do. And secondly, stop ripping Titus 2, kicking and screaming out of context if you don't. And here's what I also understand. Just because we answer these objections doesn't mean that that settles the issue.

And I realize that you live with the harsh reality of the current status quo in our culture. My heart breaks for you, because that's where a lot of you are. My heart absolutely breaks for you. It's hard, It really is. But the good news is this.

There is a movement afoot in our land. God is doing incredible things. It's happening. It's happening all over the place. And the fact that you are here is evident to that.

And even in some of these places that are trying to do the both and. I get excited even there because I realize that that's just a transitional phase. Because those two ideas are mutually exclusive. And the more we learn about them, the more we will realize that. That those are two mutually exclusive ideas.

The good news is, God is turning the hearts of the fathers back to the children, and the children back to their fathers. We got a couple of minutes, but I gotta tell you this. Here's something that's ironic. One of the charges that people make is, again, these first two objections, about these people who don't have believing fathers, or these people who don't have fathers in their home, or these people who come from bad backgrounds, these people who live in hard urban neighborhoods. Last week, I spent two days in Angola inside the largest maximum security prison in the United States of America.

Used to be the bloodiest prison in the United States of America. But Angola has been transformed. I wish I had time to tell you the story of what Warden Kane has done in Angola since he came in 95. When he came in 95, Angola averaged between 450 to 470 inmate assaults per year. Last year there were 53.

He came in 95, in 96 he brought New Orleans Seminary. And he began training inmate pastors. I don't know if you realize this or not, but 85% of the men in Angola will never leave. Louisiana has the harshest sentences in America. And in Louisiana, life means life.

One of the pastors of one of the churches in there, Pastor Ron, Pastor Ron is 40, 41 years old. He's been in Angola since he was 19, and he's never going to leave. Never. I was invited to Angola by a group of inmates who had read Family-Driven Faith. The reason they read Family-Driven Faith is because they're part of a program called the Malachi Dads Program.

The Malachi Dads program is about family discipleship. The message of the Family Integrated Church and family discipleship has penetrated the bars at Angola. And these men are part of a program trying to break the cycle of crime and violence by discipling their children from prison. These men have taken it on their shoulders as prisoners, 85% of whom will never see the light of day again, to say I will disciple my kids any way I can. I will do anything I have to, to give them a multi-generational vision, to give them this picture.

It's my responsibility. I've blown it, I'm behind bars, but I'm gonna do everything I can. They're writing their wives, discipling their wives so the wives can disciple their children. They're talking to their sons and daughters about courtship from behind bars, people. And pastors tell me that they doubt that they can get the men in their churches to get this done.

Tell you what, next time I go to Angola, you send them with me And you let them listen to a guy like Pastor Ron, who's never gonna see the light of day again. You let them listen to another pastor that I met in there, who during one of the annual events that they have where they bring the kids in, led his three daughters to faith in Christ. As an inmate in Angola, who'll never see the light of day again, Don't you try to tell me this won't work somewhere. Don't you try to tell me that this is asking too much. I'm a pastor at a family integrated church and those men challenged me.

And what they said was, come back, we gotta get this. You know what else they said? Help us find churches out there where our Children can go and see this. Oh, for the faith of a lifer. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.