In this sermon, Jason Dohm discusses the importance of blessing children with good patterns in their upbringing. He emphasizes the need to cultivate vibrant spiritual lives and construct a biblically structured home with healthy relationships and priorities. Dohm also highlights the significance of leaving children with a warmth of feeling about their parents' marriage and maturing relationships with children as they mature. The sermon encourages parents to pass on distinctively Christian and overwhelmingly healthy patterns to their children, creating tailwinds for their future homes.

The title of my message this afternoon is the blessing of good patterns for your children. Isn't that what you want to give to your children? You want to bless them with good patterns. The last few marriage conferences, it's probably been three or four at least, I've given a short version of this, maybe a 10-minute version. I joked to Janet I was just going to say that a lot slower.

But Scott asked me to turn it into a full length message. I've been delighted to do it. And in those 10 minute versions, I've always described my upbringing and also Janet's upbringing. Janet's my wife. And they were both overwhelmingly distinctively Christian and healthy.

So that's her background as a marriage partner, and that's my background as a marriage partner. Distinctively Christian and overwhelmingly healthy. Now many people hear that and they don't have a frame of reference for that from their own upbringing and what they saw as they grew up weren't things that you would want to repeat in your own marriage, but that's shaking that off is easier said than done as people who come from those backgrounds know. And for people who come out of those backgrounds where there's not a lot to give thanks for from the upbringing. That can be discouraging because it means that you have all sorts of baggage.

That can really be a weight that you're carrying around. You have to fight again. Of course all things are possible with God. Jesus can redeem all things, but that doesn't mean that it's not really difficult to shake those things off and it doesn't, it's not a struggle every day for you if you've received bad patterns. But, But the last time I gave that, a woman who had one of those rough backgrounds came up and she was really strongly exhorting me, keep telling these stories so people know they can build something very differently and give to their children something very different from what they have received from their parents.

So maybe you're like me and Janet, you witnessed a distinctively Christian marriage and home life and an overwhelmingly healthy home life or maybe you're like that woman who came up to me and had no frame of reference for that at all. In any case, whatever you inherited from your parents, that's not what your children have to inherit from you. And we can really be proactive and self-conscious about establishing really good patterns in our own home life that then become tailwinds, something that really propels our children along and serves as a great blessing to them. So that's really the aim of this talk is to just discuss how we go about that. Let's ask God to help us.

God, your word is true and I thank you for the councils of scripture. I pray that they would be brought to bear during this time that we would have hearts so ready to receive it. I publicly thank you God for the upbringing that I received and the tailwinds that has been for me, for Janet's upbringing, the tailwinds that that's been for us in our marriage. And I pray that you would give us the grace to be able to give that to our children that when we witness them building their own home life in days to come, that we would see that they have received a blessing from the things that they witnessed in our home. Oh God make it so in Jesus name, amen.

Well my premise which I'll give to you now and then I'll do my best to prove it to your satisfaction is that the most important inheritance that we'll give to our children is the patterns that we hand down to them. You may or may not be in position to give them a home or money or something like that. But long before we die and pass on material things, the patterns that they get in our home as they observe us day by day is really the key inheritance that our children will get from us. Our children have a front row seat watching us every day for two decades. So just think about that.

You know it's true, but maybe you haven't just thought about it in those terms. The children are on the front row, nothing obscuring their view, and every day for two decades they get to to witness your relationship between husband and wife and the culture that you create in their home, is the culture that they're swimming in. And the truth is that we're very likely to see a lot of our patterns in their lives in the future. In other words, they're going to go out, they're going to start building homes, what are we going to see? It might look a lot like what they witnessed.

And so let's start with this thought exercise. If my children form their own homes and then do what they've seen, that's what most people do, form their own homes and they do what they've seen, would those patterns be a blessing or a curse? So they marry, they start their own home life, and they just repeat what they were on the front row witnessing for two decades. Would that be a blessing for them or a curse? If we're honest, I think we'd have to say, well, it's going to be a mixture.

It won't be all perfectly good what they've seen day by day for over two decades, or perfectly bad. There will be some of both, but we know that what we want is the highest ratio possible of things that are distinctively Christian and overwhelmingly healthy. We want that to be the high part on this ratio and to absolutely minimize all we can of the things that are not right, that don't conform to what we find in Scripture. So in the rest of our time I want to lay out what I believe are the key categories that require the best of our attention if we are to bless our children by giving them patterns that if they follow and just do what they saw will be a great blessing and will be tailwinds to them sort of speeding them on to a good healthy home life and I'm going to give you four of them. Number one, cultivate vibrant spiritual lives.

Steve has already preached this part of the sermon earlier and better, but I'm still going to preach it because hopefully we'll benefit from the repetition. Number one is cultivate vibrant spiritual lives. Lives, I put it in the plural because this isn't the business of a husband to the exclusion of the wife or of the business of the wife to exclusion of the husband. Both marriage partners need to be cultivating a vibrant spiritual life. This isn't man's work or woman's work.

This is disciple's work. So let's do the disciple's work. A vibrant spiritual life is both deeply personal and individual, but also extremely observable, especially to the people who live with us, right? So they are on the front row. They do get to witness.

So do you think it's lost on them whether you have a vibrant spiritual life or not? Of course not. It is personal and individual. No one can experience it from the inside, like the person who has a vibrant spiritual life, but there are marks of it that always work its way out into the other patterns of your life. So a person with a vibrant spiritual life that is really observable even though no one can actually feel it from the inside except for you.

The people close to us know when our souls are flourishing. No controversy there. The people who are close to us know it when our souls are flourishing. No one needs to blow a trumpet and say, look, I'm feeding my soul and I'm growing. The trumpet isn't needed.

People can see it in all sorts of different ways in your life. Deuteronomy 6 is one of the most important Bible passages about family life. If somebody's giving a sermon on family life, if they don't have Deuteronomy 6 somewhere in there, then it's suspect. It's right near the top of the list. Listen to Deuteronomy 6, 4 through 7.

Just listen as I read it. With all your strength and these words which I command you today shall be in your heart you shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. Now, did you catch the order? To me, the order is everything here. Married couples, Parents, love God with all your being.

Speaking of impossible things, love God with all your being and saturate your heart with the word of God. These words which I command you today shall be in your heart, then teach them diligently to your children." Good luck teaching them diligently to your children. If you haven't nurtured, cultivated love for God with all your being, and then saturated your heart with the Word of God. How will you teach it diligently to your children if you have not done these things? Have not cultivated love for God and saturated your heart with the Word of God?

Children have a lot to learn, but they seem to be born good at spotting hypocrisy. They don't know a lot of things, but they know how to spot hypocrisy. Yes, yes. They know when we're just going through the motions. That's why you can't teach your children diligently unless that is built on loving God and saturating your heart with the Word of God.

So cultivating vibrant spiritual lives is the bedrock that we're building everything else on. If you're not building on that bedrock, you have nothing. If we don't have this, we have nothing real to build on. If we have this, but we don't have much else, we still have a clear line of sight to where we need to be. Do you buy that argument?

If you've got this real love for God in your heart, like fiery love for God in your heart, and you're saturating your heart with the word of God, If you've got that but don't have much else, you've got line of sight to where you need to be. But if you have 100 other things, but you don't really have those two things, what do you really have? You don't have much at all. Why? Because children are expert at knowing when we're just going through the motions, at spotting hypocrisy.

So my question for you, for all of us, is is your soul flourishing? How are you going to pass on good patterns to your children if your soul isn't flourishing? Is your soul flourishing because you're cultivating the pattern of meeting with God in prayer and reading, meditating on, and memorizing scripture? Are you meeting with God in prayer? Not to check the box that you have on your list for the day.

We all know we should pray, so let's put it on the list because it might not get done if we don't. And now that it's on the list let's make sure that we check it off. It's good to have a list. Prayer is on my list. I do check it off but you know that it can be on the list and get checked off the list and you haven't really prayed.

Haven't really prayed. My co-elder one of his sayings that he says over and over again is, pray until you pray. Do you know what that means? That often at the start of prayer, it's an effort. It's good that you've embarked on something, but you're really not connected with God yet.

And you have to press on for a bit until you pray. So we need to pray until we pray, and then we need to read and meditate on and memorize the Word of God. That's number one. Cultivate vibrant spiritual lives, plural. The husband doing it, the wife doing it, and this actually gives us bedrock to build on for these patterns that we are passing along to our children that are tailwinds to them and just pushing them forward in good things.

Number two, construct and then routinely live within a biblically structured home. Construct a biblically structured home. Take the Bible, see what the Bible says about home life, and construct the home that way, and then routinely live within it. Meaning, just have that describe daily life in your home. What you constructed then, you become consistent about executing that plan day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, so that the two decades that your children have on the front row are within a routinely lived out biblically structured home.

Now, under this heading, I want to speak of two aspects. Relationships and priorities. So we want to construct a biblically structured home with our relationships. We want to construct a biblically structured home with our priorities. Relationships.

The relationships in the home start with the marriage relationship. It's the first relationship in the home and it remains the foundational relationship in the home if you don't count your relationships with the Lord. But the human relationship which is foundational in the home is the marriage relationship. Within the marriage, the husband and then in time, usually the father, is and must be the head of household. He is the head of household.

How do we know that? Because God has declared it to be true. The joke around here is you might be a good head, you might be a bad head, you might be a knucklehead, but you are the head because the Word of God has declared that a husband and father is the head of his household. So the husband of father is the head of the household and must be, meaning, does anyone feel like you don't need to grow into that? Anyone feel like you got that whipped guys?

Anyone here? I got that whipped, Yep, there's really no room for growth in my role as head of the household. You liar. You liar. I hope you're joking.

And of course, this is anchored in the headship of Jesus. So when we're talking about headship around here, we're talking about headship like Jesus's headship. So a woman has nothing to fear from this headship and everything to gain from this headship because it's biblical headship. So you might want to join the down with the patriarchy people. Well, just let's define patriarchy.

If we're talking about Jesus-like headship, we shouldn't be down with that at all. A lot of the down with the patriarchy people are talking about all brands of patriarchy, and they don't even want Jesus's brand of patriarchy. I think we'll have to part ways with them. If we're talking about inappropriate male domination in the home, then well, I'll take up the picket sign too, and we'll go picket the patriarchy. But if we're talking about what Jesus does, I'm putting down the sign and saying, no, I think that's actually what the Bible calls his sons to.

Husbands and fathers, you set the tone for the entire home. But I don't want to set the tone for the entire home. But I don't want to set the tone for the entire home. Too bad. You said it.

You come in, you have nothing to do but to complain about work or circumstances in this category of life, that category of life, you have you've set the tone. Okay, if you come in, even if you had to make yourself do it, and you come in and you lead the home in cheerfulness, you lead the home and godliness, then the atmosphere of the home will be cheerful and godly. That you set the tone for the home. Then the wife and mother is and must be the helpmeet. Wife, mother, you are the helpmeet.

And I don't want to be the help me. Well God has declared you to be the help me, but you must be the help me. Are there any women in here who think they have that whip, that there's no room for growth in your role as the help me? You liar. You just heard your husband lie and now you're lying too.

Wife, mom, you need to graciously accept that. You need to embrace that. You need to rest in that. Did you know you can rest in that? You need to learn to glory in that.

Actually, if you study it and if you do what the Bible is actually calling wives and mothers to, you can learn to glory in it and reject that it is a second-class position. If you study your Bible, you'll end up rejecting what the world is saying, which is, oh man, you settled for that? Women who understand what the Bible says and then throw themselves into that role find that I haven't settled for anything. There's Nothing more glorious that I could be spending my life on than the things that God has called me to. So, wives, mothers, graciously accept it, embrace it, rest in it, learn to glory in it.

Husband and dad, let me address you on this matter too, on the matter of your wife as a help me. Your home needs an empowered help meet. Your home needs an empowered help meet. A high competency, high level companion helper. That's actually what God is calling for in the Bible is high competency, high level companion helpers, not entry level work.

It infuriates me when I see husbands looking to their wives for entry level help when the wife is capable of so much more. It's actually a helper comparable. What do you mean comparable? Also human, it means so much more than also human. Oh yeah, not an animal.

Is that all you got out of Genesis chapter two? Not an animal. So a helper comparable to you. Hey, a human being for entry level help. No, no, no.

A helper comparable in competence and horsepower. That's what God is giving a man in Genesis chapter 2 is a helper, comparable in competency and horsepower, a highly competent, high-level companion helper. How do we know this? There's a whole chapter of the Bible given to it. Go read Proverbs 31.

Does that sound like entry-level help to you? No way! Proverbs 31 is talking about a highly competent, high level helper to a man that actually allows him to be in the city gates contending for what's good in his community and not worried at all about what's happening in the whole kingdom of his home because he has a helper who's comparable in competence and a companion to him in his home. So make sure your wife has a compelling life that stretches all of her competencies. I happen to be a man who married a woman who's a lot smarter than she is.

That's not false humility. Actually, the North Carolina records show that. What do I mean? 3.9 in mathematics, 3.5 in physical education. So, The truth has been established and it's on record in the archives of the state of North Carolina.

Who's who in the zoo? Who's who in the dome zoo? 3.9 in mathematics, 3.5 in physical education. I'm a gym teacher. She's a math teacher and she did better at math than I did at gym teaching.

Scott said this earlier, we don't go to grade point averages and then say well you got the higher grade point averages now you're the head of the household, that's not how it works. But I've been so happy it's benefited me and our home in a thousand ways to have a really highly competent companion helper in our home. And she has found that all of her skills and gifts have been needed and even stretched in the role that God has given her to do. So it's not like it's the waste of a smart person that Janet Dome has been resigned to motherhood. Shame on us for ever accepting anyone saying that.

A smart person has not been resigned to motherhood. Side lined to motherhood. A smart person has needed all of her smarts and all of her competencies for all of the work that God has given her to do in the kingdom of our home. Now, this marriage relationship is two who have become one. Two people becoming one.

Make sure That is what your children see day in and day out. Work hard to maintain a totally unified front in front of your children. Are there things that need to be hashed out from time to time? You bet there are. Of course there are.

Should you be doing that in front of your children? You bet you shouldn't. Of course you shouldn't. In front of your children, they don't catch a wind that there are things that need to be hashed out in private. You hash them out in private because what you're showing, what you're displaying, what you're having them witness for two decades is that the two have become one.

And so you have a totally united front in what you're showing to your children and then things that need to be worked out and of course there are some are worked out in private. I'm going to say this is very important. Your children are very important. They're a key part of your mission is to bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord, right? If you think of the duties of a home, bringing up the children in the training and admonition of the Lord has to be a top three at least.

So your children are very important, but they are secondary. Your marriage is primary. And as you're raising children and as the number count goes up, it's easy for your marriage to become secondary. That's not right. And that's not a good pattern to pass to your children.

If you pass that pattern to your children, that will be headwinds for them. That will make it harder for them. That'll be something that they'll need to overcome. We don't want to send our children into home building with things that they need to overcome. No way.

No way. Keep your marriage primary, which is hard to do as they get older, as the number count goes up, the demands go up, and so the tendency is the marriage gets the leftovers. No way. Just make up your mind right now. No way.

Our marriage is not getting the leftovers. Even as the children get older and even even as the number count goes up, we can't afford that because of what we're trying to pass to our children. That brings us to priorities. So we talked about relationships, all in the context of building a biblically structured home, and then consistently living within that biblically structured home. Do that on relationships.

Now I want to say do that on priorities. Here's my observation. Many if not most homes aren't focused enough. So lots of things get a little attention. You with me?

You look at the average home, not very focused. A lot of things are getting a little attention, but if we order our homes biblically, I think a few things will get a lot of attention and then the other things can have the leftovers. Deal? We're Christians, So we focus, we prioritize, we give a few things a lot of attention, and then all of our other interests can have the leftovers. The alternative is the things that the Bible would have you prioritizing getting the leftovers.

And that's such a bad trade. Here's my counsel. Two points of counsel. One, make a daily time of worshipping God together the immovable rock in your schedule. Well, I can't do that and do little league, then don't do little league.

Make a daily time of worshiping God together. For us it has to be right after dinner. If it goes much after dinner then the Indians scatter and and bringing them back together again is murder. Okay, so it has to be right after dinner where we have line of sight to all of the occupants of the house. That's really when it needs to happen.

And we gather and we do a very simple time of worshiping God together. Sometimes it's 10 or 15 minutes, sometimes it's longer than that, but it is the immovable rock in the schedule. Meaning If nothing else gets done, that's what gets done. This will make you radically different than most of the people you know. Well then let it make you radically different.

What's wrong with that if it's good, if it's healthy, if it's distinctively Christian? Number two, my second point of counsel is create a life that revolves around a great local church. So only a really good, sound local church will feel worth that. So, that's a really important part of the recipe. Find that, but then make your family life revolve around that.

It won't, it might not change every day, but it'll change your life, meaning it's incremental benefit. It's drip, drip, drip, drip. Every drip is good. Does any one of the drips change your life? Nope, not a single one of them changes your life.

But they altogether totally change your life. Okay so but you got to be there for the drips. You have to make your family life revolve around the local church's life so you're getting the drips so you get the cumulative impact of the good. One, make a daily time of worshiping God together the immovable rock in your schedule. This is in the home to create a life that revolves around a great local church.

Let's conclude this section with a thought experiment. If all I had was your financial records and your calendar, I couldn't talk to you. I just had two data points. I got your financial records, your bank statements, your checkbook, your receipts, and your calendar. I could see where you had appointments, where you spent your time.

What would I say were your priorities? Could I even pick out priorities? Maybe there would just be a thousand things getting a little of your money and your time. And there are a bunch of good ones in there and a bunch of fine ones in there, lawful ones in there, but I couldn't tell from your financial records or your calendar that you had priorities or actually that you were prioritizing things that had no correspondence with what were being called to in the Bible. Listen to Psalm 127.

Psalm 127, a beautiful Psalm, a short Psalm. Unless the Lord builds the house, They labor in vain who build it. Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows. For so he gives his beloved sleep.

Behold children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them. They shall not be ashamed, but shall speak with their enemies in the gate." Build a family culture that says, Lord, please build our house and then routinely live within it. Build a family culture, a family life that says without saying in other words if people come and observe they would say this is what this is the this is what this family culture is saying.

They're saying, Lord, please come build our home by what they do, how they relate to each other, what they prioritize in their relationships and in their priorities. They're saying without saying, Lord, please build our house and then routinely live with it. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year for a couple of decades, send your kids out with that testimony. Number three, leave your children with warmth of feeling about your marriage. Leave your children with warmth of feeling about your marriage.

Leave your children with warmth of feeling about your marriage. If you ask me about my parents' marriage, I'll describe it to you with certain specifics, but what I'm really trying to do is to impart some sense of the warm emotions that their marriage calls to the surface in me after observing it for decades. So I've got specific things that I'll say to you about their marriage, but what I'm really trying to do is give you a sense of what it was like to watch their marriage during those two decades that I spent in their home. Both Janet and I witnessed marriage relationships that were very sweet and very careful. So we watched a husband and wife, I watched my mom and dad, a husband and wife and parents, and Janet did too.

And they were, their marriage was very sweet and very careful very sweet you know what that means they liked each other and they loved each other and they were nice to each other and they laughed with each other and they loved to be around each other. So it was very sweet. But both of our parents fit that profile. But it was also very careful. I think both sets of our parents were very aware that there are a lot of love killers out there and if when they get momentum it's hard to restrain them so they were very careful that the love killers didn't get momentum in either one of our homes.

We really never saw the love killers get momentum. These are the things that you say that are toxic and the things that you do that are toxic that can get ahead of steam and steamroll what had been a good marriage. So they knew that was true and they were very careful not to give space to the love killers. I tell this story. So what's the the biggest blow-up I remember in my home growing up?

So two decades, biggest blow-up. My mom and dad played bridge. You know what bridge is? It's a card game. I couldn't explain it to you.

I don't know what it is. We don't play bridge. They played bridge. They had a bridge group that would meet once a month. It was the turn to be at our house.

So the adults played bridge, the kids went to bed. I think I couldn't have been 10 years old, eight, nine years old. And in the morning, we went to sleep when the bridge playing was happening. In the morning, it was icy at the breakfast table. The card playing had gone bad.

Somebody played something they shouldn't have played. Something was said that shouldn't have been said. A response to that was said and at breakfast, my mom and dad were not interested in talking to each other. Okay, so I go off to school out of that and I'm convinced it's over. It's over between my mom and dad.

Can you believe I thought that? Hey, you know what? By dinnertime, I don't know what happened in the interim, they worked it out in the interim, and at dinnertime, dinnertime was just normal. The sweetness had returned. They still liked each other, they still loved each other, they still laughed with each other.

It was a wonderful evening in the dome home. Now, that's the most drama I can report to you. So, if you grew up in a radically different home from that, You can't even believe that story. In two decades, that's what you got? Yep, that's what I got.

So that to say this is possible, and it tells you what I didn't see, but it also hints at what I did see because that was so out of character for what I was used to witnessing day to day. Isn't that lovely? I hope my kids get out of the house and they have a story like that. This is the worst that I ever saw of mom and dad and they have this lame story of it was a nothing burger. And they can say we thought mom and dad were calling it quits because we had a few tense moments when I was nine.

Several years ago our church had a married couples night and I had the opportunity to make some brief remarks and I titled the brief remarks Dome Inc. So Dome is my last name, we're Domes. And Inc. Is short for Incorporated. It's like the legal entity that makes up a business.

So the Dome business. And the point I was trying to make in those brief remarks was that there is a business side to the home. Home needs structure, home needs discipline, home needs consistency. If you have a home without those things, it's not a very happy home. So these things are important, but if that's all you got, you don't have much.

Is all you want brown ink? Is all you want to want any more than Walker ink? You don't want any more than Santel's ink? Where did the Santel's go? There, Santel's.

No, you know we want more than that. We want love and affection. And we do want laughing and cutting up and being nice to each other and enjoying being around each other. As time goes on, the kids get older and you got more of them. Dome Inc.

Can become the face of the franchise. You know that's true. And We can't afford to let it be because we're going to pass some sort of feeling about our marriage. They'll have specifics that they'll use to describe the feeling, but what they're describing is actually what comes to the surface emotionally when they think about your marriage. And you can't afford them to think about your marriage and it be firm and ink.

You don't want them thinking firm and ink. What I'm saying is this, Have a very sweet marriage. You want your parents, your children, when they form their own homes and when they're establishing their own patterns, when they think about your marriage to have this warmth of feeling. Oh, we want that. We know there's a business side to our home and there has to be and that's good, but man, we want it to be like mom and dads that went so far beyond Dome Inc.

Listen to 1 Corinthians 13. Love suffers long and is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not parade itself, is not puffed up, Does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, does not provoked, thinks no evil. Does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth.

Bears all things. Believes all things. Hopes all things. Endures all things. Love never fails.

Model that for a long period of time and your kids will never be able to escape it. You model 1 Corinthians 13 and this radical definition of love that doesn't match up with the world's definition of love at all, but take this as your definition of love and then model it for a long time and your kids will never be able to escape it. Isn't that what we want? They couldn't escape it if they want to because they saw it day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year for two decades. Number four.

Finally, mature your relationships with your children as your children mature. Mature your relationships with your children as your children mature. Ephesians 6 verse 4 says this, and you fathers do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. Colossians 3.21 says something very similar, Fathers do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged. Dad is the head of the house, so he bears the primary responsibility, but of course this applies to both parents.

There are things we can do or say or approaches to parenting that can provoke our children to anger and that discourages them. You did something or said something or your approach to how you're going about your parenting tempted your children to anger, led them into anger, and then they were discouraged. On the other side of that coin, there are things that we can do or say or approach as to parenting, which are an encouragement to our children. Paul is essentially saying, don't do this, do that. Don't do or say or approach your parenting in ways that tempt your children to unrighteous anger and discourages them, do the things that encourage them.

So we're required by God to be sensitive to these things and we need to be aware how much they change over time. The things that provokes a five-year-old to wrath is not the thing that provokes a 15-year-old to wrath. The thing that discourages a seven-year-old isn't the same thing that discourages a 17-year-old. I don't want to say this. If I have one parenting gear and that's the gear that fits the five-year-old, that's going to be a problem.

I just got one gear. Well, five-year-olds don't stay five-year-olds. Before you know it, you blink and they're seventeen-year-olds, but you only got one gear. That's going to be a problem. And my observation about myself is that I was often a little slow to recognize those transitions.

I was a little slow. As our children mature and earn our trust and confidence, we need to adjust and lengthen the rope. You don't have the five-year-old on the same length of rope, you have your 17-year-old on if they've gained your trust and confidence. Obviously they have to earn your trust and confidence, but as they do we need to lengthen the rope. They need to have a sense that they have become insiders on the family team.

So you want your kids to think of your family as, hey, we're a team and I'm on the team. And as they earn your trust and confidence, they need to begin to be treated like and feel like I'm an insider on the team. Janet has done an excellent job in our home of cultivating the sense that the domes are a team and then as they've gotten older to give more responsibility without close oversight. So the responsibility gets greater as they earn trust and confidence, and the oversight goes down so that they actually get ownership of stuff over time. I'm so thankful that you did it that way.

They start as totally unruly, unskilled labor, have I lied? Totally unruly, that they haven't learned to be dependable yet, trustworthy yet, and they're unskilled. You do it way faster if you just did it yourself, but if you're seeing ahead you know you can't always just do everything yourself. So You need them to start doing things that it'll take longer to have them do, but you know you're investing, so they're unruly, but you'll be working on that, and they're unskilled, and you'll be working on that. And they should end as essentially full partners in Dome Inc.

Not voting partners, but full partners in Dome Inc. And understand all the transitions that need to happen on that long continuum, unruly, unskilled labor to full partners. How many transitions are in there? A bunch of transitions where they're given opportunities to earn trust and confidence, and as they earn trust and confidence you're letting the rope out you're letting the rope out until finally by the time they're ready to be married they're essentially full partners in the family structure though not voting partners. What does this have to do with patterns that we hand down to our children?

I submit that if we do this skillfully, our children will be learning to parent skillfully, And they will so appreciate your obvious trust and confidence. Children appreciate it when the confidence and trust has developed and you're letting the rope out and they appreciate it. They appreciate having more leeway, more leeway. Over time as they earn your trust and confidence, make them partners in the family mission and in doing that you will be teaching them to have a family mission. Do you have a family mission?

I hope you do. As you make them a bigger and bigger part of your family mission there you're teaching them families got to have a mission. When you have your own family, you'll have a mission. And you'll be advancing that mission, and you'll have kids, and they'll join with you in advancing your mission. One of the things our family has done for a decade is to be out in front of an abortion clinic monthly.

When we started going, we were going there with little kids and honestly it's a great place to take little kids because people yell cuss words out the window and it teach them sign language. And you learn, your small children learn that distinctively Christian overwhelmingly healthy homes is not what most people are growing up in and that we're actually in a war. Your children need to know that and it's best that they learn that when they're at your side when you can explain the words in the sign language. Let them learn it when you're there, when you're there crying out to women that they wouldn't go through that door and wouldn't go through with their plans. It is a war zone out there.

So when we started, it was little kids. This past year, sometimes it was my kids who were calling out to women who were going into that clinic. There were months when I wasn't in town, when it was my older children who were there without me. Our family mission had become their mission and I didn't have to tell them to go out there. They knew it was our week and it would be unthinkable to them that we'd miss our week.

In conclusion, The inheritance. The inheritance. This is the big inheritance we're all giving to our children. Make it a blessing, not a curse. They are going to get an inheritance of the patterns.

That's inevitable. That's unavoidable. The only question is, will it be headwinds? Will they have to fight against doing what they saw in order to have a distinctively Christian and overwhelmingly healthy home? Or will you give them tailwinds where when they look around at their friends who are in marriages struggling against weights and baggages that their parents handed to them, they'll say, Oh God in heaven, thank you for giving me tailwinds that I can do what I saw mom and dad did in our home and it's distinctively Christian and it's overwhelmingly healthy.

Thank you God. Let's pray. God, I do pray that you would give us this, that you would help us to honor you in our marriage relationships, in the priorities in our home, to build home cultures that look like what the scriptures describe and feel like what the scriptures are calling for, have this aroma about them. God, please allow our children, cause our children to marry, create their own homes, and may those homes gain tailwinds from the patterns that they've received from us. Please God in Jesus name, amen.