For the past several days I’ve been listening to Voddie Baucham’s sermons online. There’s something unique and fun about typical black preachers because they can take the ordinary and transform it to extraordinary with their words, tone, and attitude. It’s been a listening pleasure for the past several days. I don’t necessarily listen to Voddie’s sermons purely for the joy of black preaching, but I listen to them because his messages address the important issues of this culture in a Biblical fashion.

I just finished listening to his message The Centrality of the Home (note: Paul Schafer at Reforming My Mind compiled many online sermons from many wonderful pastors and preachers, which included Voddie Baucham’s messages). I came away encouraged and affirmed after listening to Voddie’s message on “The Centrality of the Home.” The main point of his message is that for the past 30 years churches have taken up the disciplining and teaching of the children instead of encouraging and training parents to teach their own children as laid out in Ephesians 6. He challenges people to think Biblically about the youth group culture and encourages parents to take up the task of disciplining their own children. Our Christian heritage is declining and parents need to value children as gifts from God and take up the main responsibility of shepherding them. We are to make disciples by having and teaching our children.

There is no doubt that I despair from time to time when the workload is great while caring for my four young ‘uns. It seems that we take the more difficult and less traveled road when it comes to our children. We chose to have more than the socially acceptable two children per family, we chose not to put our children in daycare, we chose to have one single income so that I could stay home with the children, we chose to homeschool, and we chose to have our children sit with us in church and not send them to children’s church. We don’t know too many families who do this, and at times we feel like a sore thumb and even feel a bit lonely or too different. Voddie’s message comes very timely for me because he affirms what we’re already doing. The constant training and disciplining at this stage of my children’s lives is very exhausting but it will bear fruit down the road. I will look forward to the day when I see the fruits of our labor, and in the meantime, I will not lose heart and I will press on.